Ah. I think it's the pacing. Dex is very good at pacing... and this one seems to want to be longer than a short-short to me so it seemed rushed.

And I do think that pacing is a part of style (with a little "s"). I was just talking to my students about Style (with a capital "S") and how it is fallaciously used with this weird "cult of the author" thing that so huge. So I'm a bit overanalytical about the term these days.