As a non-member of the exalted-many who get to hack for a living-

I agree. The nature of the machine, is to crush the artisanry and joy from the task. However, you can't beat it, so…

I use the miserable things as "research accelerators." I have neither the time, nor the capacity to sustain the BAC necessary, to parse all of the sources and documentation of the various systems in which I'm liable to take interest. I very rarely ask them to "do ${task} for me," but rather: "What is the modern approach to ${task}? And, how do I avoid that and do ${task} in the spirit of Unix?” "Has anyone already done ${task} well?" "Are there any examples of people attempting ${task} and failing spectacularly?"

If you treat it like your boss, it'll act like your boss. If you treat it like your assistant, it'll act like your assistant.

Edit: derp.