On the flip side of Mark's point, it seems that free-form questions are a great opportunity for the answerer to steer the course of the rest of the conversation.

Next time I'm going into an important meeting like the ones Mark describes in his post I'll make sure to give some thought to how I want to answer these wide questions. I'll make sure my long winded free-form answers plant the right "nuggets" so that when the they start to drill down they are asking the questions I want to answer.