I can understand being annoyed by or impatient with Clifford Stoll. Having followed him since The Cuckoo's Egg came out, he's pretty much always been this way. I recall an interview on The Today Show perhaps, where he sat cross-legged in the chair (still hopping up and down) and played with a yo-yo the whole time.

While he may take a while to get to a point, it's like reading a fractured narrative to me. There are lots of little points that seemingly do not add up or go anywhere, but if you can make the connections you can draw quite a bit from it, much as in this "lecture" where the shards are connected by the inscription on the bell.