The king of flourishes with plot is Stephen King. You can move it forward if you change the make of the voice in your narration. I think flourish is very important - although in context of webnovels, I'm no expert.
But without it, every novel sounds the same. For example, you can't elicit horror into a person's mind without concentrating on certain points of the happenings. Sometimes you want to drive home a fixed idea, a number, or a weapon, or what brings out a sensation among his readers. in Dreamcatcher, he has something called (to continue the toilet-humour here) shit-weasels. While reading it, I thought that this was too much information. And yet, for a few weeks after finishing the book, every little stomach ache had something of his descriptions in the back of my mind. And I was scared shitless.
Then, there are other authors who want to link the plot to things in the world. For them the plot is a device, and their actual ideas lie in between, where themes are exposited. Now, readers might not be forgiving about it. There's always risk to writing certain ways. If you challenge your readers, it is most likely that they will not accept it. If they choose to read your books while sleeping, and it is something extremely complex, they will most likely put it down.
If one is adding themes in flourishes, it is better to have a complete story. With an episodic release schedule, it is unlikely that they will have chance to get resolved, and from the general perception of my experiment here, it seems this is true. Themes, until resolved, do not go across to readers.
Stories are more than plots, but a very good story is always about the plot, even when there is flourish.
