Perhaps the more pressing question is why someone would navigate to that page to ask the question of its necessity. Surely if it is not necessary than any intelligent person would dismiss it outright and not bother to use its facility.

I believe you have answered your own question:

The utility of this service - over and above either a search engine or encyclopaedia - is that users can call upon the knowledge of a theoretically diverse group of people to answer a question or get a range of opinions on a topic that there may only be stock answers for.

Ethos of laziness? What on earth are you talking about? Sounds like politician speak to me.

The purpose of this format is to ask questions and generate answers, in fact, exactly what you have done. The obvious difference between the internet and answers given on this page should be apparent. The internet does not have real people answering the questions but this one does.

Answers on this page can be based on opinion which you have the opportunity to either agree with or disagree with and, by awarding points, you have a degree of ownership over the question. Other answers may rely on memories of certain events and the ability to recall those events to obtain a resonable reply. Some of the replies may be humerous and some may be way, way out. By asking a cross section of people who may view the question from a different perspective you will invite arguement and debate. The more people that use the site will increase the chance of getting more and varied replies. None of this can you get from a machine, can you?