I'm with you. There should be a selection at the top to " read without highlights."

I wrote a reply to you once but lost it because I clicked off this pop-up screen (faaaaaaaaaahhhhck!).

When looking for a place to make a suggestion to Medium, I only found the help page, and it wasn't great for contacting anyone.

There's the blog, and that's probably the closest thing to telling an actual person how you want it to change.