Charlie, thank you for your detailed description of your experiences.
I am surprised to hear you like the UI of Wikipedia because IMO it has many bit’s and pieces that clutter. At least it doesn’t have the things I personally can’t stand: things that move in the periphery. Or mid-article links to other articles. But I assume those thingare are intentionally distracting. Luckily there are ad-blockers and I also use tools like Live editor to manipulate the CSS and edit out stuff on some websites.