[jka]

What you've said is, in my opinion, likely to be a difference between the technology companies that become tomorrow's infrastructure and the ones that disappear (even if it takes decades).

As you say, the default tendency in many companies when failures occur is information-loss. That can be attributed to using too many communication tools, cultural expectations that problems should be hidden, silo'd or disparate documentation stores, or lack of process.

Intentional, open, thorough and replicated note-taking with cross-references before, during and after incidents can create radically different environments which allow for querying, recovery and improvement regardless of failure mode(s). Kudos to Dan for moving in that direction with these writeups (and to you for raising the subtext).