I can say, from my experience, that if you try too hard to condense your writing, you are in danger of ending up with something that not even your future self could easily follow. Part of the problem is that you are so familiar with what you mean that you cannot easily see how your words appear to someone reading them for the first time.

If you can, don't send your final draft off immediately - let it sit for a while and attend to something else before (hopefully) giving it a final read through from end to end, without stopping.

With regard to transitions specifically, the meaning of the text can depend on them - for example, 'therefore', 'on the other hand' and 'in other words' cannot be substituted for one another, and it is not always obvious from the context which reading is intended.