In 1998 I wrote some documentation and offered it to the GNU Project. To my surprise, I got a reply back from Richard directly. He was very pleased that someone had written such documentation and offered it to them. (I remember him using the word "Hooray!")

However, in retrospect, what I wrote was pretty poorly written. It was my first major attempt at documentation, and Richard critiqued it heavily. I felt very hurt, but he was probably kinder than he needed to be given the low quality of my work, and, more importantly, he was correct. Once I got past feeling hurt, I learned a lot from his critiques. I essentially got free training in technical writing from Richard, and I look back on that as one of the more awesome moments in my life in software.

That is my experience as well, but the "to the point" part took a bit getting used to.

I'm sure it depends on the topic of conversation, your stance on said topic, etc., etc., too.