Its also very true that most organizations will only end up using a subset of any given applications features — which is another opportunity, as you note, for specialized training materials.

While vendors are quick to offer their standard training, this doesn’t ‘stick’ nearly as well as something that’s targeted to the specific user type and incorporates the rules and standard operating procedures of the particular group. The good news is that this is no longer costly and/or difficult to produce.

And I agree wholeheartedly with your comment about useful features; it’s just that most software tends to have features that are more/less important for any particular target audience. Just-in-time training sticks; wasting people’s time teaching them a feature that they’re not going to use immediately is just that.

On a slightly different note, while I agree that the best universe is one in which software is intuitive enough to use that you don’t need to read a manual, the reality is that there is always a value vs effort trade-off that any user makes — which is to say, don’t throw away or ignore some feature just because it isn’t straightforward. Users will tolerate fairly poor UI if they perceive that the value they receive exceeds the effort they need to make. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t harass the vendor to make it better, just that you shouldn’t ignore features that might not be perfect at the moment.