Even so, I feel that much of the point of writing things down in the first place is to put the information into the mind (where the subconscious mind can work with it and do its jobs) and, ultimately, so you won't need to be reminded about it later.

Very true; I've noticed the same thing myself.

Yeah... that's really weird, I very rarely read what I wrote down on the TODO list ... I just write it there and cross it off later.