Its a matter of programmer discipline and management follow through. When I write a message I know why I am writing it and what it means. It only takes a minite or two to document that at that moment. If my boss allows me to skip the documentation at that time then we both have failed. But if he catches me then we are successful.
My most successful attempt at reasonable documentation required that a peer of my choice reviewed my code which also required message documentation in the front of the program. The programmer's designed that system and it worked well. Its simple slop versus discipline. Norman
