I'm curious to know what bad personal experiences you've had in conducting surveys to dismiss them completely. When was the last time you ran a survey and why did it fail to deliver the results you were expecting?

Also, please can you take it easy on the tone? See this discussion - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747

Edit: Analysing server logs can tell you what people did, not why they did it. At least in my experience, surveying users directly about their motivations and needs has been very enlightening and resulted in a direct increase in sales.