Precisely because he's that respected, I was surprised at the font choice, which I disliked (it just seems to mean extra mental effort for me over something I'm more used to).
He has said elsewhere, in response to questions about his choice of fonts:
This is a very funny question, why I use Comic Sans. So. All my talks use
Comic Sans, and I frequently see little remarks, “Simon Peyton Jones, great
talk about Haskell, but why did he use Comic Sans?” But nobody’s ever been
able to tell me what’s wrong with it. I think it’s a nice, legible font, I
like it. So until someone explains to me — I understand that it’s meant to be
naff, but I don't care about naff stuff, it’s meant to be able to read it. So
if you’ve got some rational reasons why I should not, then I’ll listen to them.
But just being unfashionable, I don’t care.
