🚀 go-pugleaf

The answer to your question is directly related to the mindset of corporate America. As the importance of usable documentation wanes, so will the need for an experienced FM user. 

I have been a technical writer for more than 10 years doing projects for high-tech companies and I have yet to meet a subject-matter-expert capable of or interested in creating completely usable text, much less a well-published document. (When I was at Philips Semiconductors, they developed a Framemaker SGML application solely for the purpose of having IC designers produce their own datasheets. The fact that Philips created an excellent template didn�t keep the project from failing. The problem was twofold: they didn�t create any user documentation for the SGML application and the engineers really weren�t serious about doing desktop publishing.) 

Out of 20 projects that I have been involved with, more than half of them have required me to create text from scratch. Sometimes I only supplement source matter and sometimes the content of the document I create is written entirely by me. 

As for the projects where I merely "published" content from SMEs, I have had to heavily edit the source material for grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.. And then there is the time spent on content organization.  In addition, I normally have to fiddle with the template being used. This all adds up to a good bit of work. 

I have found that a lot of companies don't know what they want re: documentation and do not believe in the importance of sound documentation. l believe that sloppy documentation in any form is not an issue for most of the companies that produce it.  

On this exact point, has anyone besides me noticed the terrible writing in documents in the "OnlineManual" folder of Framemaker 7? I realize that there are quite a few mistakes in those documents due to bugs in the PDF process, but some of the grammar mistakes are unbelievable.  

Or how about the hard-copy users manual for FM 7. I don't understand how extra pages were included, especially since the extra pages were spread across two chapters! 

If these types of mistakes are acceptable, then I agree with your initial assertion.