I disagree. It is not a burden on the audience to ask good questions, it is one on the speaker to deliver a talk that elicits good questions.
Talks are short, you can't cover everything. If you've addressed the audience appropriately, they should understand what you told them, and you should have given them the tools to look deeper into your topic. The perfect way to look deeper after a talk is to ask an expert (you!) right now. If you've made the talk interesting, they'll of course be genuinely interested and want to know more. So a good talk = good questions.
I judge every talk I give by the questions that are asked afterward:
If there are no questions, I gave a bad talk.
If they're pity questions (something superficial or off topic---"how does this apply to <my favorite foobar nobody else uses>" are typical), I gave a bad talk.
If they're questions about something I actually did cover, then either the asker is a moron or a pendant, or I did a bad job on that section (something that's easy to detect by watching the reactions of the rest of the audience).
If they're questions about something I glossed over on purpose, or they're about open problems or otherwise really make me think, I walk out happy.
As an audience member, your only job is to attend talks you think you might be interested in, and to relax. Your natural reaction will be a reflection on the quality of the speaker, and if you find yourself asking good questions, congratulations, you just saw a great talk.
NB: This applies equally to promotional and academic talks.
I've been part of the conference 'industry' for about three years. I generally attend about 20-25 conferences per year covering a variety of disciplines from software, to medical, to business. It is from this experience that I must unfortunately disagree with your view point :)
Regardless of the quality of talk, you can't escape a couple of people with "that guy" syndrome. Some people just can't sit still without making their opinions heard. Buzzword bingo from the article is a good example. There's often a king-nerd who need everyone in the room to know that he too is also smart, so he starts dropping stupid buzz words only marginally related to the topic.
I've seen people go up to the microphone just to give book suggestions to the speakers. "Oh, you like the subject that you presented about? I too know about this subject. I read books."
It's all veeeeeery painful to endure. So, in short, I wouldn't judge your talks by whether or not you get a couple of dumb questions.
These people exist, but they are outliers, and you can detect and discount them. If you're getting good questions, yes, you'll get a couple of these guys no matter what, but the rest of the audience will react to them for you.
It takes an incredible faith in the good intentions of other people to believe that everything that happens after a talk is solely the responsibility of the speaker.
Just as all speakers are not created equal, the audience isn't a uniform group of do-gooders ready to ask excellent questions given the correct provocation. There are bad apples, and there are stupid questions, and they get asked whether the speaker gave a good talk or not.
Talks are short, you can't cover everything. If you've addressed the audience appropriately, they should understand what you told them, and you should have given them the tools to look deeper into your topic. The perfect way to look deeper after a talk is to ask an expert (you!) right now. If you've made the talk interesting, they'll of course be genuinely interested and want to know more. So a good talk = good questions.
I judge every talk I give by the questions that are asked afterward:
If there are no questions, I gave a bad talk.
If they're pity questions (something superficial or off topic---"how does this apply to <my favorite foobar nobody else uses>" are typical), I gave a bad talk.
If they're questions about something I actually did cover, then either the asker is a moron or a pendant, or I did a bad job on that section (something that's easy to detect by watching the reactions of the rest of the audience).
If they're questions about something I glossed over on purpose, or they're about open problems or otherwise really make me think, I walk out happy.
As an audience member, your only job is to attend talks you think you might be interested in, and to relax. Your natural reaction will be a reflection on the quality of the speaker, and if you find yourself asking good questions, congratulations, you just saw a great talk.
NB: This applies equally to promotional and academic talks.