agreed, well it's because academics have to be good salespeople (i'm not saying that to be demeaning, it's actually a useful skill). professors need to 'sell' their research proposals and visions to funding agencies in order to get multi-million dollar grants. similarly, they need to 'sell' the high-level pitches of their papers to reviewers in ultra-competitive publication venues
I am in total agreement with this. These days anything targeted towards top-tier conferences typically has a sales-marketing slant wrapped around it.