"Appeal to" and "being understood by" are two different things.
You can write a text that appeals to a small audience, but is understood by a big audience.
You can also write a text that would appeal to a big audience - but doesn't because no one understands it.
It's not hard to write a text that can be understood by a large audience. Using an analogy that only some people understand is counter productive as analogies are used exactly to allow the audience to illustrate the problem.
The core of my response was not about appealing vs understanding, but about the objective function being to max(number) with whatever operator (appeal or understand)
But you demonstrated that in a beautiful way with your misunderstanding! How wonderfully meta! QED
You can write a text that appeals to a small audience, but is understood by a big audience.
You can also write a text that would appeal to a big audience - but doesn't because no one understands it.
It's not hard to write a text that can be understood by a large audience. Using an analogy that only some people understand is counter productive as analogies are used exactly to allow the audience to illustrate the problem.