I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that a lot of people are adamant about only using steemit.com as their front end (or don't know of other options). Everyone sees that format and thinks they have to do the same lengthy word-vomit, and get angry when they see people doing short posts.

I know @zappl was around for a bit, but haven't seen much of those posts lately -- seems like they're working on a version 2.0 of their app... We'll see what comes of it.