That's all very well, but what I really want to know is (restatement of the question)

I like this idea, but I fear that means my question asking process has to start including a "wait for the irrelevant answer, then ask the question again" process. Which would suck if that's the best way to go about it. My question could include a "this is the most obvious answer but it won't work so you should answer the question I asked" which is kind of what I was including with the statement, ("assuming there isn't something wrong with the question..."). But for some reason I still attracted a -notAnswer- even with that caveat in there - so I am not really sure about it.

I expect to spend some time working on (a. as asked in the OP) dealing with it. I can see how the IT industry would be juggling both sides, and at times you may know the answer to their question is actually best found by answering a different question (why can't I print; is your computer turned on?).

I suspect the difference is that in IT you are an expert in the area and are being asked questions by people of less expert-status, so your expertness of being able to get to the answer implicitly gives you permission to attack the problem as presented in a different way. You could probably be more effective by appealing to known-problems with known solutions in your ideaspace. In this case (and using my post as a case-study for the very question itself) there are no experts. There are no people of "know this problem better". Especially considering I didn't really give enough information as to even hint as to a similarity in problemspace to any other worldly problems other than the assumption statement. Perhaps not including the assumption statement would have yielded all people answering the question, but I suspect (as said in other responses) I would get 101 responses in the form of, "communicate your question better".

Dealing with the lack of success in answering questions; doesn't solve the problem of (b in the OP) getting people to answer the right question.

I have asked on a few of the response threads now; is there something wrong with the culture of answering a different question (I find there is)? and what can be done about it?