Err, I just tried to reply to your comment above but it got marked as spam, so I'm trying again as a reply to the post instead of that particular comment, just in case that helps.

I generally trust anyone who says something sounds awkward or doesn't flow. Because if it sounds awkward to one person, it will probably sound awkward to other people, even if it doesn't sound awkward to me. And sometimes things are awkward because of being read a certain way -- it might not be the way I want or expected it to be read, but I'd rather clean it up so that it can't be read awkwardly.

Oh, yes, Language Log is a linguistics blog: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/