I haven't read Burning Wheel, mainly because I can't order things online and I've never seen it in a store, but in regards to the "comically snobby" thing I need to say something.
Role-playing games are cursed by having a standard. D&D is, like it or not, the thing that every role-playing game is compared too. Games trying to be different from D&D (as most Indy games are) have to point out how they diverge from that standard.
That level of meta-speak almost always comes off as snarky, pedantic, or comically snobby. Authors have to be incredibly painstaking to avoid having that kind of information come off that way.
Houses of the Blooded, for example, talks at a meta-level about its own rules and decisions behind them, and many people find this snobby... but if you realize what the author is trying to do, you realize that it isn't putting down how other games run, or how other people play them. It's stating, clearly, how it diverges from the standard.
Now I may be wrong about Burning Wheel, Luke Crain really might be a snobby jackass, but I have a feeling that this is what is happening here. By attempting to be clear in how his game is unique, and unlike D&D, he has unfortunately made himself appear to be a pretentious jerk.