The question becomes which is more important: posting the question/answer
here and all of us learning from it, and I readily admit this is an added
benefit to the entire process.

However, is not the 'prime directive' to assist others?  If the inability to
express a problem combined with a rather terse "we don't like attachments
here" results in someone leaving without assistance, hasn't everyone lost?

It amazes me, and I've brought this up to MSFT through my MVP Lead, that the
ability to upload pretty much doesn't exist here.  You'd think with all the
computing power and storage available that such a feature doesn't exist.  
Besides the example I gave earlier, just finished (not) helping someone that
had a problem, only to find that auto-calculate had been turned off in his
problematic workbook.  No way to 'see' that at a distance, but an examination
of the workbook would have revealed it right away.  Luckily he was not
someone to just sit and wait on a solution to fall in his lap, kept looking
and found the problem himself.

I just think we all lose something because the ability doesn't exist,
whereas, with the ability we would all have another tool to use to provide
even better assistance, and provide it faster, on occassion.