Edited to address the substantially re-worded question. Since my original answer has an upvote, I’ll leave it intact below.
I think you have an overly narrow view of what revising a text is. It’s not just adding a word or punctuation mark here and there, or joining a couple of sentences together. The revision can be completely different from the first draft: the first draft may just be about getting ideas down, while the second might be rewriting the idea – the content – in a style that you prefer.
You give this example in comments:
"The people gathered at the city gates. They were leaving the city.
They rejoiced in their liberty." It is not clear which sentence the
middle one should be attached to upon revision. Moreover, it seems to
me that it may be unlikely that the writer would even write the middle
sentence. Thus, they would lack the opportunity to use a participle.
Even if your first draft had not included the middle sentence, there’s no reason "The people gathered at the city gates. They rejoiced in their liberty," can’t become, "The people gathered at the city gates and, leaving the city, they rejoiced in their liberty."
When you’ve written your first draft, look at every idea (not every sentence) and think how you can express it differently, in your style. That might mean completely rewriting it, which may in turn involve participles, or it may not.
I expect the authors I’ve quoted below wrote first drafts, which may or may not have included the participles that made it into the finished book. Participles aren’t inherently difficult or complex (for native speakers at any rate), so I think studying how established authors use participles is your best bet for working out how to use them effectively.
Original answer:
It therefore appears that the priority of content can hinder the
objective of stylistic usage and complexity. How can this be resolved?
Perhaps you’re not reading the best example texts. I picked three books off my shelf – books that would probably be considered high-end literary fiction – and had no trouble finding examples of participles.
Pouring coffee she called him ‘Sheriff Moran’ and afterward pointed
out the cake and mints down the table with a gloved index finger, as
if he had not noted them himself.
David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
So Franklin, while describing the council chamber at the palace,
invented a large clay tablet, which, he claimed, had probably hung
over the gypsum throne.
Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
With one toe occasionally controlling a fresh input of hot water, he
blearily read an account of Darwin’s dash to complete The Origin of
the Species, and a summary of the concluding pages, amended in later
editions.
Ian McEwan, Saturday
These authors have stories to tell and there’s plenty of content in these books. In addition to content, they’re masters of phrasing and of writing complex sentences while maintaining clarity so they're well worth studying as well as reading for pleasure.
But it may be unclear whether each should be connected to the previous
sentence or to the next.
I’m afraid I think this comes down to your mastery of English. As an example, in the comments, you said:
"The people gathered at the city gates. They were leaving the city.
They rejoiced in their liberty." It is not clear which sentence the
middle one should be attached to upon revision.
I can see a few different ways to combine the sentences using a participle:
"The people gathered at the city gates, leaving the city. They rejoiced in their liberty.”
"The people gathered at the city gates. Leaving the city, they rejoiced in their liberty."
"The people gathered at the city gates and, leaving the city, they rejoiced in their liberty."
I’m not thinking too much here, it’s just what immediately springs to mind. They all work in their own way, and the choice of which to use is just that - a choice.
If you're having difficulty knowing how to use participles effectively, you could consider reading more works by authors who use complex sentence constructions. In addition to those I’ve quoted from above, I’d also recommend Sebastian Faulks and John Fowles. I read a lot by all of them in the 90s, so it’s not necessarily a contemporary style but, given your penchant for complexity, you might enjoy investigating their writing.
