> At this point documentation becomes viewed as a time sink and people start to prefer other practices like pairing, comprehensive user stories and tests. These unfortunately are only a bandaid solution to the problem...
I think that "pairing, comprehensive user stories, and tests" are all good things you should have anyway, and documentation can't be a replacement for them.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming
Pairing - Pair programming, which if one of the developers has experience with the product will solve questions that you otherwise will solve with docs.
Comprehensive User Stories - User story like in Agile/Scrum, where it has an acceptance criteria, goals, description, etc. and can be used to track back documentation of features.
Tests - User test cases, which can be a replacement of the documentation of how to use the product or the intent of the features.