Assuming the tech. author is “in” from the start (and here the cost starts to build up…), attend development meetings, try development versions etc. the author should be pretty up to date, and certainly an expert after x number of years. The costs though… The Dorico team is pretty small, but for a large development team of say 30+ programmers actually the guys that knows the most about a software (from the user perspective) are the tech. writers. This does not apply to small teams though. I think I read somewhere (possibly from Daniel) that the doc. dept. came in rather late in the development of Dorico, and that is a challenge for any tech. writer.
True. And re-write texts to conform to some kind of standard/template, and redo images as we all know how experienced some are in that… IF the goal is to have something that correct and looks presentable, i.e. It is certainly not an easy task.