I agree with most of what you've written here, but I would still say it mostly boils down to quality of writing, not just formatting. Most of my work is distributed, and while I agree that it doesn't bring me tons of money (perhaps formatting will?), my formatting is the same in both my distributed and undistributed pieces.

I've written a very easy-to-the-eyes piece, like lots of white space, no big blocks of text. Guess what, it wasn't distributed. Formatting alone is not a guarantee of distribution; my denser pieces without pulled quotes or with longer paragraphs get distributed.

I aim for 100% distribution every month, and I mostly get it by attempting, every-single-time, to write elaborate, clean, well-structured pieces. One or two pieces per month miss the distribution standards, but I'm sure these ones that miss it are formatted just like my distributed pieces.