I'm a bit confused by your use of 'pithy, but at least its terse'. Don't pithy and terse mostly mean similar things? Here it seems like you're contrasting them. Not trying to be pedantic, apologies if it comes off that way.

"Bob can be blunt but at least he's honest." Words can have positive or negative connotations for the same notion.

I think he’s saying that’s it’s dense and _too_ full of meaning. So, while terse, it can also hide extra meaning in its density.