Deep listeners and casual listeners don't - and won't - likely meet in their approaches. I often try to maintain awareness of a statement Bill Dixon made that's applicable across a variety of scenarios - "you start from where you are – you'll get to the rest in time" - and hope that, in listening, people will get to the rest of it. But it's not always the case, unfortunately.
FWIW, ultimately it seems like Washington's music could've been done better by someone else. That's the upshot.