Seemed like it would be interesting to read, but I slammed the back button once the butterfly (wtf), blur effect, and thin grey font on a white background overwhelmed me.

Agreed. The correct text color is the one of the titles. The paragraphs are too gray, they have not enough contrast. Place a sheet of paper from a book or a magazine side to side with that page and the text on the paper will be much easier to read 99.99% of the times. Is there any irony in that? Given the subject of the post, maybe not. It's a demonstration that hundreds of years of paper typography yield a better ergonomy than 30 years of the web.

I liked the fun animation, but I agree that the text should be darker for readability / accessibility.