In one of my earliest Meta posts, I said something similar to Ben's opening paragraph.  I was reminded that an "enthusiast" can be a beginner, and beginner questions are welcome here.

Yes, the site is more oriented to solving specific problems than providing a general education, and yes, many general education questions are too broad.  But there's a gray area between lazy OP and confused newbie where we should act constructively to help the OP refine the question rather than shut them down.  

Some users have too fast of a reflex on the "we are not a script writing service" comment.  It's appropriate when somebody asks an elementary question that shows no research effort.  However, many of these questions involve a problem or twist for which a basic search isn't likely to yield a solution, or a beginner who either legitimately doesn't know where to start or can't understand the research he's found.  IMHO, way too many of the "not a script writing" comments are just inappropriate.

They have unintended consequences that are harmful to contributors as well as the questioner.  A perfect example: [Adding or Replacing text within hyperlinks](https://superuser.com/questions/1032773/adding-or-replacing-text-within-hyperlinks).  The question needed some improvement and there is no indication of what research the OP might have done.  However, it wasn't about something super-fundamental, and it's easy to see where the OP's thought process wasn't headed in a direction where their simple Google search would likely yield a solution.

Engineer Toast and I each contributed an answer that would at least get the OP on the right track.  However, that was after another user left a "we are not a script writing service" comment that told the OP to go play with it on his own and come back if he got stuck.  It was a relatively new user who likely took his cue from the rampant postings of that comment by a few high-rep users.  

Guess what?  The OP was told he wouldn't get an answer until he jumped a hurdle and he didn't come back.  We don't know if he solved his problem, but two contributors wasted their time trying to help.

The contributor side of the issue is Jonno's point:

> I realise this creates a conflict of interests and potentially
> propagates incorrect behaviour in asking a question, perhaps I
> shouldn't have started answering it.

The only time that premise would apply is if the question is obviously off-topic and someone (usually a newbie), posts a low quality answer before it's closed, which could get upvoted by another newbie, thereby delaying deletion of the question once it's closed.

A poorly written question is hard to answer well, but if it is on-topic and someone can contribute a quality, helpful answer, they should not withhold the answer on the basis that the OP hasn't yet described their research.