I find myself having to dumb it down a lot, because those words just come naturally to me -- but yes, usually better for all involved (in a general audience, anyway -- academic is another story) to keep it simple.

Did anyone watch Project Runway? On the reunion show, they had a segment of Tim Gunn using "big" words and said that nobody could understand him. I was totally perplexed by that, because they were all normal, everyday words to me!