Isn't this why enterprises favoured things like SOAP web services with XSDs and WSDLs? The verbosity acts as human and machine-readable documentation, and the files can be used to generate client code.
Ignoring the benefits of using HTTP as the request transport mechanism, this seems like another cycle of people coming up with a comprehensive but complex solution, other people getting frustrated with the complexity and developing a simpler solution, then filling in the gaps (such as documentation) until the solution is a complex patchwork of competing libraries, none clearly better than the others, leading to fragmenting of mindshare and expertise...
Ignoring the benefits of using HTTP as the request transport mechanism, this seems like another cycle of people coming up with a comprehensive but complex solution, other people getting frustrated with the complexity and developing a simpler solution, then filling in the gaps (such as documentation) until the solution is a complex patchwork of competing libraries, none clearly better than the others, leading to fragmenting of mindshare and expertise...