I will agree that the first sentence is ill-considered (if nothing else it could've been broken up with one extra phrase), but it's really the worst offender.

I will agree that the first sentence is ill-considered (if nothing else it could've been broken up with one extra phrase), but it's really the worst offender. In my opinion the prose in rest of the article is perfectly reasonable. For anyone interested in the subject matter but discouraged by this awkward beginning, I would urge you to press on.