Steven,
I had typed out a very similar reply to yours but hit delete instead of 'post'. Thought it wouldn't be received in the spirit it was written, just as your reply was. Some people only like to hear the things they want to hear. I nevertheless fully agree with you on the subject.
Sometimes I read questions (like this one) and get the very distinct impression that, the way the questions are asked, any meaningful answer will be totally unusable to the original poster because he lacks the knowledge.
In my response (that never got posted) I went into detail about fundation, soil types, wind loads, average and maximum, safety factors, placement/location, turbulence, maintenance/repair, risk to the surroundings, etc. One could write a book, answering those 'simple' questions that were asked.
The way a question (or: what question) is asked, can give a lot of information on someone's ideas, knowledge and plans.
There's a reason we have highly schooled (trained?) engineers. If a piece of software could do it all, I'd be without employment. Software, at best, is just a tool. Putting a monkey behind a PC with AutoCAD will not result in good mechanical designs (unless it's a clever monkey to begin with).
Peter.
