He dropped them in the new stuff.

Most authors think their audience is too stupid to catch subtlety and for most of their audience its true. It is admittedly irritating, but I feel the same way in ever SF novel that rehashes elementary Relativity or Quantum, alternatively I'm quite glad for it when they do elementary chem or bio. Exposition, either of known science/philosophy or of the fictional background stuff, is always a coin flip chance of being boring and awkward or subtle and proper.

Plenty of lazy authors, especially if they've cranked out a few good bestsellers and let fan-worship convince them they shouldn't listen to their editors. He's hardly a rarity amongst authors for trying to pawn off his weaknesses as profound or artistic, but it doesn't stop it from being aggravating. You look at any of the classics of SF/F though and they almost all have massive plot holes, fridge logic comes in and says "Hey... why didn't they just..."