An untold truth is that datasheets are also the terrain for disputes with tech support. That is, there is a whole team of people called Application Engineers in said companies dedicated to support, that basically knows very little about the practical side of the product and all they do is to read datasheets, just in case there are engineers out there that design products without studying it.
So in order to pass the first (and usually not very helpful) line of support you better study the datasheet because it will be a sort of "legal" document you will have opened in your screen for the next week, until the application engineer gives up and connects you with someone who knows the product.
Regarding the quality of documentation, yes, nobody beats old monsters like AD. In regards of reference designs... AD is used to give you a 10"x10" board to evaluate a tiny little component; let's say a battery charger. Of course the reference design board has traces of the width of a thumb, very big gold-plated connectors for the power supply, etc. So when you go and integrate the little component in your wrist watch and it doesn't work, the application engineer will go with: "yeah, your design is not much like the reference design, so it's kind you will run into trouble.".... Imagine the rage...
An untold truth is that datasheets are also the terrain for disputes with tech support. That is, there is a whole team of people called Application Engineers in said companies dedicated to support, that basically knows very little about the practical side of the product and all they do is to read datasheets, just in case there are engineers out there that design products without studying it.
So in order to pass the first (and usually not very helpful) line of support you better study the datasheet because it will be a sort of "legal" document you will have opened in your screen for the next week, until the application engineer gives up and connects you with someone who knows the product.
Regarding the quality of documentation, yes, nobody beats old monsters like AD. In regards of reference designs... AD is used to give you a 10"x10" board to evaluate a tiny little component; let's say a battery charger. Of course the reference design board has traces of the width of a thumb, very big gold-plated connectors for the power supply, etc. So when you go and integrate the little component in your wrist watch and it doesn't work, the application engineer will go with: "yeah, your design is not much like the reference design, so it's kind you will run into trouble.".... Imagine the rage...