I agree that it can get a bit boring, and some shooters (riflemen usually) get overly zealous on the numbers. But the reason that the info is out there is because in some shooting scenarios you cannot compete or hunt successfully without the data.
Deer hunting almost universally is done at close ranges. Knowing Kentucky windage and correctly estimating distance with a properly sighted-in rifle and being familiar with a consistent load from that rifle is about all one needs.
But let's say you simply want to know the numbers, or are required to shoot at a multitude of ranges with varying wind drifts and elevations and humidities, well I guess than that having such "boring" data might be beneficial. All you have to do to see their relative merit is to use a ballistics calculator such as
http://www.hornady.com/ballistics-resou ... calculator once or twice.
All that mumbo-jumbo is largely overlooked by me, save for one feature most of the time.
I have a chronograph, so I can know bullet velocities from my rifles. With that knowledge, and the ballistic coefficient of the bullet and its weight, I can sight in each of my rifles for the most optimum point-blank range possible. If I can get a sight setting that allows me to be 0.75" low at 50-yards, 0.5" high at 100 and 2.0" low at 200 than I am golden. Or whatever the "best overall" flight path is possible with a given load from my rifles. With one 50-yard zero (5-shots) I am through, although I might fire one or two rounds at longer distances for confidence building.
How much ammo would I need to expend on paper over and over and over if all I had was a box of rifle ammo and had absolutely no idea of the flight path/velocity/drop and previously never become familiar with? I'd have to shoot at actual ranges to see what was going to happen.
Now magnify that short-range "point blank" zero out to 800-yards because I am shooting a 6.5 Lapua from a $4000 rifle with a $2000 optic on it. I'm sure as heck not going to expend the time and effort and money to just try eyeballing the correct settings and shooting enough rounds to memorize all that, now am I?
So I agree with the OPs rant that it's oftentimes lost on the majority of average/casual shooters and it should be because it's largely unnecessary.
To some, that gobbledygook is a passion, or a hobby, or a matter of pride in being able to calculate what a good rifle with good ammunition and good dope of the wind and conditions can allow when all the variables come together in one place at the same time.
No different that a motorhead who obsesses with valve grinds and cam durations and compression on a weekend race car.
And mjadams61... If all I wanted was some inexpensive ammo for some close range shooting and I got that techno-babble guy holding me up, I would have walked away as well.