What’s the deal with helpfiles these days?

"I very rarely read help files, but expect icons to be standard, and that any toolbar option has a tooltip to explain it's purpose.

The UI should be pretty easy to understand without a manual."

"The answer depends rather on the application and its development.
For complex applications offering many options, help is mandatory. It's impossible, for example, to use Visual Studio without referring to its help.

So the answer depends on you: An application whose screens are not self explanatory and doesn't have help is rather useless."