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The OP also recommends against using "hellish" webforms, and I wholeheartedly agree... one "oops" with my browser and the message I was writing is gone. But I

• prodigal_erik 15y ago
  If a web dev is going to start rolling their own CRM (maybe without realizing that's what they're doing), there's less perceived friction if they just start bashing out one more web form (with fields that make the user do some of the routing and prioritization work) than if they must first do enough homework to wire something into the org's email server, where prototype-grade code could really screw you over. I think this is a problem Zed Shaw set out to solve with a new framework, though he didn't display the "100.0% of messages must be delivered" attitude that would make me comfortable tinkering with it.
• ggchappell 15y ago
  Good question. Perhaps web forms are thought of as a kind of CAPTCHA, the idea being that any ol' bot can send e-mail, but it takes a human -- or a bot specifically written for the site by a human -- to fill out a form. Note: I'm not endorsing this thought; I'm just trying to get inside the heads of the people who make these awful things. EDIT: Another possibility is that they want a way to easily tell how to route a communication from a customer. And web forms can contain those menus that tell the reason for the communication. (Tragically, those menus rarely work for me; my reason is not usually not on the list.)