Yeah, that typically happens when folks can't agree on working definitions.
Yup, some of the things that are included in "performance" might not be important at your table. Cool. But, that doesn't follow that performance isn's important. It's not like speaking in the 3rd person suddenly removes the "performance" aspect or speaking in 1st person is necessary for performance.
Go back a page or so, and I lay out exactly what we're discussing. Since no one seems to disagree with those definitions, let's use those, please?
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] laid out a bare bones writeup of his session in Evard's tower. To me, I'd be so checked out of that game that I might as well be asleep. No exposition, no description? The tower isn't even important and is completely unremarkable, to the point where Pemerton cannot even remember what it looked like? No thanks. To me, that's a terrible game. I would strongly advise DM's/GM's NOT to do that.
The situation was interesting, the setup was great. The execution was a complete snore fest, at least, judging by that writeup.