I realized today why I'm glad I left technical writing, at least as a full-time gig. I actually enjoy it as a break from coding and project management. But the simple, sad fact is that documentation is expected to be part of the package. And consumers have been well-trained to conflate "part of the package" with "free."
You know, as in: "Buy a set of Ginsu knives, and we'll send you The Juicer, absolutely free!!!"
(Ummm, no. The "low, low price" of said Ginsu knives was actually jacked up a skosh to cover the Juicer. But shouting simple logic at the TV screen doesn't seem to convince the mountebank shilling cheap kitchenware. Funny, that.)
The external (i.e. the consumer's) perception of "free" tends to drive down the internal (i.e. the producer's) perception of the value. Thus, though gathering all the information for documentation, organizing it, and publishing it in usable form is one heck of a lot of work, it's somehow supposed to magically happen within an organization. Like the Documentation Elves left it in the package or something.
Intellectually, most of us who aren't in upper management realize that there are no such things as Documentation Elves. But oftentimes, just knowing something on an intellectual level doesn't seem to make much of a dent in the perceptions we carry around with us. And documentation is just one of those things.
