[tjohns]

The problem is that "criticality" is too binary. A tower light NOTAM might be low-criticality for a fixed-wing airplane pilot flying day VFR, but high-criticality for a helicopter pilot flying at night in IMC.

Similarly, chart updates are very important if you're flying IFR. Going below minimums while in the soup ends... very badly. If somebody's changed the MEA/DA/MDA, you can bet I want to know.

NOTAMs do have keywords to tell you the subject (i.e. airport closure vs tower light), and most briefings will highlight the ones likely to be urgent.

(That said, I'd argue printing out all the tower notams in textual format is somewhat useless. The NEXTGEN FSS briefings are plotting them graphically now, which is an improvement.)