Actually I do agree with the OP to a certain extent: Some descriptions aren't really great. Like: What does "MSN protocol plug-in that uses msn-pecan" mean? Plug-in for what? What's pecan? What will my N900 do better after I installed that?

From my experience, most applications in Extras are more or less OK. -testing is worse, but then... That's what I'd expect.

What's more interesting is that this is one of the few areas where end-users, noobs, can make useful contributions: Think the description is unclear? Provide a better one. The description is in English even though your device is set to German? Provide a German translation. That's easy and non-technical. So why don't people just do it?

I did every now and then for applications I liked and wanted to support... I remember some (very few, in fact) developers asked for help with descriptions and especially translations of descriptions here on t.m.o. and got a lot of feedback when they did, so I assume users want to help. Maybe they just don't know that they can, that they're welcome to do so and how they should do it?