&#62; He judges everyone's prose as if they wrote for the same reasons he does<p>I don't entirely disagree, but the examples he uses fail in their own terms. They don't do the job the writers want them to do.<p>It's technically true that the timeframes are missing from the club-owners letter, but 'in the past year' is irrelevant to the audience. Do you really think it's exactly twelve months since they started 'considering'? Why should any recipient care?<p>You're correct that the phrase is there because the writers want to persuade the reader that they've been hard at work on their behalf. It's just such a lazy cliche that it doesn't succeed! How about "Bob, Sue and Mike spent the last three days interviewing staff about how to improve the way we run things." It's far more concrete, and so much more convincing. It's also part of a story, which is a great way to keep people reading.