The Importance of Extended Vocabulary

It's rare to come across unusual words and manuscripts these days, says Noel Luchman. The arguments against using large and possibly unfamiliar words include the idea that an author must match his writing to his reader's level. But what if the long word isn't necessarily going to be familiar to the reading public? What's a writer to do? Do we dumb down our writing or embrace the endless possibilities lurking in dictionaries?