This is so wrong. Thinking of a paper as simply a collection of information is like thinking of a poem as simply a collection of words. Working within the constraints, of metric, rhyme and so on, struggling with the constraints, you often end up with a more beautiful poem. The same is true of any kind of authorship, with poetry just an extreme example.

Actually, it holds even more broadly. Compare developing on an iPhone to developing for a Blackberry, for example. Apply loosely enforces a set of interface constraints, and this makes life easier for both the developers and the users.