but then, from personal experience, once you master, and practice photoshop/illustrator-like software, it becomes not so hard to actually produce quite complex visual communication in little to no effort. it is questionable whether I'd ever be able to do so with pen and paper, though, of course, the feeling... the touch of it is second to none. Talking of practicality though, it makes me wonder. I think rather an important question is whether we also talk about writing/note taking as part of larger personal information management system. It is very likely having one (such own KB) matters even more than the medium itself.