Agreed on all points.

Writing something down has an interesting psycholigical effect. It increases the legitimacy of the words, even if they're exactly the same as spoken. Someone made the effort, did the labour to write that down - wow - must be worth at least that much more than spoken word. Someone wrote down a whole lot of things in a collection - a database. All of a sudden the burden to argue with it jumps through the roof. It's interesting.