I have no idea whether any of my game writing is consistent with this thought, even my current writing on Fallen Gods, but I'm increasingly wondering whether the problems might be something like this:
(1) A large quantity of info-dumping is information that the player doesn't need in any respect. He doesn't need it from a gameplay standpoint because it has no gameplay relevance whether the Fasfacanga were once called the Aganbta in the age of Magfala, but he also doesn't need it from a story standpoint because it's totally obvious that whether they're called Fasfacanga or Aganbta, they're just elves, and we already know everything there is to know about elves other than marginalia here and there. Thus, the information is valuable only in and of itself -- if the writing is sufficiently lyrical and brilliant to justify the writer jumping in between the player and the game and saying, "Let's take a moment to talk about the age of Magfala!" or if the mystery that is being uncovered is sufficiently fascinating that the player is independently motivated to seek it out.
(2) Even where some explanation is necessary, there is almost always too much of it. If you have a Fasfacanga who introduces himself as a member of the Sylalala caste, you probably can get away with just saying, "We protect the forests with spell and blade" and not giving a huge exegesis on how Sylalala culture works. Of course, as I noted before, almost all of this is unnecessary if you don't play hide the salami with your fantasy tropes by renaming your elven bladesingers Fasfacangan Sylalalans. But even when you don't use the established nomenclature, the structure of how a concept is introduced is usually sufficient to convey the meaning. "In these mines, Durin awoke a balrog, to his doom" basically tells you everything you need to know about Balrogs without offering any explanation of why this particular one was in the mine, how it was woken up, what it looks like, etc.
(3) Players have become very conditioned to expect an, "Ask more about X" option, even though they don't even necessarily want to know more about X, and the achievement-unlocked mentality compels them to take the option if it's there. Writers feel a need to satisfy that compulsion. It's a bitter circle. But I am almost certain that no meaning would be lost if every "Tell me about X" topic were removed because of point #2. The player would learn the same information through the implications of all the other dialogue on the topic.
But in my opinion none of this has anything to do with pretentiousness. One can describe orc culture ad naseam without any pretense, and it's still going to be boring.
I agreed with every word you said, but then the end line was most disagreeable, leaving me unable to rate the post. What games often did and many still do, is have those big lore dumps about orc culture in a book somewhere, or split over many npcs discussed not as lore dumps but combined with quests - such as "please go rescue my husband's ring, he lost it while fishing for hydras after getting drunk and losing a finger wrestling competition" - from that one sentence you know that orcs get married, fish for hydras, get drunk, finger wrestle, so much information, so few words and it's relevant as it's quest-related. Just imagine how much you can find out about orc culture from such as process and 10 quests. Enough for it to feel 'real' that's for sure. Also, that's not pretentious writing, that's very down to earth writing. In order to make it pretentious you would rewrite that thusly (thusly, hehe, see what I did there):
"please go rescue my husband's ring, he lost it while fishing for hydras after getting drunk and losing a finger wrestling competition"
Becomes:
"The ancient and withered orc maiden stands before you, a tear in one eye, a rolling pin in one hand, a faint whiff of rotting fish clouded around her. You gag slightly as you endeavour to discover what seems to have upset her in such a way.
"Oh woe is me! Oh damnation to my worthless sot of a husband!"
"What seems to be the matter crinkled green wench?"
"Tis a tale so sad and blue."
"Prey tell and mayhaps I can help?"
"My stupid great oaf of a husband has gone and lost his wedding ring...
[insert 2-4 screen clicks about why wedding ring is important to their culture and why it needs to be found all in extended flowery language]
"Fishing you say?"
"Yay, he went fishing for hydras yesterday."
"Why did he do that and what's hydra?"
[insert 2-4 screen clicks about why fishing and hydras is/are important to their culture all in extended flowery language]
And, I'm actually getting bored just writing this padding, but you can see the formula well enough, now just imagine this whole process repeated for "getting drunk?" and "Finger Wrestling?" and you're getting the point, 22 words have suddenly become an infinite bottomless well of narrative and, not only that, but encouraged the author to imagine themselves as Byron or Keats, trying to ake us empathise for the plight of an old orc woman like it was some greek tragedy, when, in reality, yes, it's just a silly side quest for some possible exp and loot etc.