I agree it's hard to be all things to all people.

I think fundamentally, Hackage is meant to be a centralized package repository. If you look at other similar projects, there seems to be no real consensus as to whether that should just be a launching-off point to the actual project page, or more inclusive.

When I originally wrote this, I was going to say "It's akin to CPAN", but then to make sure I wasn't misremembering, I looked at a bunch of CPAN packages and saw that they were all actually fully-documented (with examples and whatnot).

I think the advantage to having consolidation is that you can then at least try to enforce documentation standards (whether you should, is arguable). What's super frustrating is going to a Hackage page, finding the link to the project home page (frequently on GitHub), going to the GitHub page and then just seeing a barren directory listing of files.

I feel slightly uncomfortable making statements about how Hackage should be set up however, as it's like going to a soup kitchen and then complaining about the specific soup they've decided to give you. "Oh, you mean this community resource we've set up which allows anyone to contribute a package and have it globally available doesn't provide exactly the functionality you'd like? Please tell me more about how the community can respond to your whims."

Also, for what it's worth, all the Haskell libraries that I make frequent use of tend to have very good documentation (you could argue that's HOW they end up becoming the ones I make frequent use of).