Well, I think it's a Russian philosophy of teaching. It's like the examples in Blokh, where you must try to calculate through preliminaries and obstacles to bring about a situation where the idea can be executed. When I'm reading Yusupov's examples, I have to look actively for the idea, and ask myself how it's functioning in the game. This active learning is very effective--if you can stand the strain.
I did the chapter you refer to. In the Baburin game, the fragment gives a realistic combination culminating in a straight Damiano mate at the end. The next example gives an abbreviated version (only one rook sacrificed) that is pure wit no preliminaries. After these, if you hadn't already, you would know the new idea.
In the chapter on centralization in the same book there is what you might consider an even more extreme case--the study-like save of Fisher-Keres,where Keres, in the manner of the World Champion he would have been, allows Fisher an extra queen--but now matter how it tries, it can do no damage in the presence of Keres' piece configuration. The example is late-Mozart-level genius, a tour de force, and hardly graspable at once without work, but you go through it and ask yourself "ok, so how did centralization save Keres?" And the answer is that when the emergency happened, the queen was able to cover a few key squares--that's all. Then you ask yourself "is that all there is to it?" And you realize: it just takes covering a couple of key squares to make everything work. A centralized piece doesn't have to act like Kasparov's "octopus knight," dominating every other life form on the planet, to be energized by its central position. But consider centralization in your variations and candidates as Keres did, and good things will often pop up like bubbles in sparkling water. "That's the way it is," as Walter Cronkite would say.
As I said above, if you want a pure presentation and clean drill of ideas, use the Steps (I really am impressed with these Dutch textbooks. And the style of the examples is noticeably like Euwe's playing style). If you want ideas with a natural surrounding of calculation, where, as in a real game, you must fight for your idea, in harder cases without success, use Yusupov--or Blokh, or Guseinov, or Khmelnitsky, which all have the same flavor. Or, better, use both approaches together.
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