I'll give you one good reason for writing just what's allowed, Philip.
Out in the "real world", when you're communicating with busy people (managers, vice presidents, CxOs, Directors, customers, and so on), they don't have a lot of time. You need to communicate your message quickly, and convince them or educate them about what needs to be done.
I learned this from a college professor who gave us MBA case studies to read, and then required a two-page paper to address them. You can't even do justice to the introduction in two pages, let alone write the whole paper! Oh, yeah -- he also specified margins and minimum font size, to take care of us wiseacres....
I mentioned this to the VP over my area, and he agreed with the prof's approach. Anything that was a page or so long when he got it would be read immediately, more or less. Anything larger would go on to the "when I can get to it" pile, which was awfully close to the trash can....
The point is not to cover every possible thing, at least not in the real world. It's to cover enough to make your point and inspire your audience to start asking you more questions. Once they do that, they're yours.... [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]
Over here, meanwhile, I'm enjoying the end of the year. On-site work for a customer today, and some light office clean-up tomorrow. Then off to family activities for Christmas, and the end of the year.
And perhaps a bit more gaming, if I can manage to log off of IW tonight