[milfot]

We frequently exceed this level of spec for an average size house.. by a long way. However, simple commercial work can often get away with lesser levels of specification as they are generally dealing with typical construction methods and 'volume' contractors and consultants.

Using the standard construction methods is kind of like including stdio.h. The better the knowledge and experience of the contractor, the more advanced the library, but the more complex the docs. In a typical set of docs, it is probably 50/50/50 legal vs contractual vs actual description of the building.

"with modern CAD systems it is entirely analogous to generating a new report from a database" (not analogous - they are actually databases with a cadd layer on top)

But I would love for this to be true! It is amazing how much is still done manually, or even by hand in the construction industry. There are very few firms who have attempted to fully integrate automation into their processes.