Though you are speaking about the English language and the reader, who speaks English as a native (?) I want to bring up another point which comes to my mind when I read through your discussion.
I learned English and French at school and (at that time) reading books in foreign languages seemed to be very difficult – the books were even encoded. It was (and is) really frustrating not to understand what the author wants to tell you. But than I accepted that it is impossible to look up every second word in a dictionary and today I like English books. (Yes, I'm a fan of English/American Fantasy novels)
Now I can live with the unfamiliar words because I fill these gaps with the meaning that is given in the context.
Therefore I don't complain about unknown words in my own language – they are not even half as much as the unknown words in English and French.
(But maybe I don't complain about long or strange words, because I'm German and the German language is full of words with more than one syllable.
)
Teresa, I read some of your books (in English of course) and could understand them very well even though I didn't get
every word.
If an author is able to deal with the own language he/she can get the issue across to the reader without diminishing or 'mutilating' the vocabulary.
I hope, this wasn't out of topic but I felt I had to note it.