Essays may not be policies but at least you get to whine about things
Ever get that itch to drop the pretense of congeniality and just let loose with how you really feel about an issue? Wish there was a place where you can vent as your internal pressure continues to climb?
Channel all that pent-up energy into the creating your own essay! They can be a great outlet when compared to ad-hominem-attacks-every-one-knows-are-true-about-an-editor-but-are-just-afraid-to-say-so. I tend to lean toward the humorous types, but others lean toward the grim. Since this is Wikipedia and I am an editor, I really don't have to create new content to be considered amusing because others have already done this for me.
I can magically read the emotions of the editor(s) who write essays. They run deep. I detect that some have really poured their heart and soul into their work. I am saddened because some emotions are not exactly positive and are actually somewhat grim. Some essays can be so grim as to make you drop you head onto your computer keyboard, break down and cry.
Essays are strangely therapeutic for me. My suffering is relieved in the act of reading (and re-reading) some essays. On dark days when all my contributions are reverted, it brings healing to my wounded heart to read the very words the essayist uses to express my own emotions. Someone finally understands my heart and my agony. It's as if the author has committed a copyvio of the words that exist within me. How could they know? How could they understand? It's as if the essayist knows exactly what I am going through in response to the cruel reversions to Open Thy Lattice Love and Feline diseases. The burden lifts. I sigh. I move on.
I have realized that an essay is the perfect environment for sarcasm and irony. These are unappreciated skills on Wikipedia. Conveying such things in writing is a very rare ability. I usually can't pull it off and admire those who can. Those who are particularly skilled can intertwine Punssee image and double meanings into their writing without you realizing it until you get to the end of their sentence. On the happier side of things, the policy on pointiness doesn't apply to essays. If it did there would be no essays. You get away with (if you're good) writing things in an essay that would get you into trouble if you 'said' the same thing on a talk page.
Finally, can we deny that many unreferenced articles and lists are really essays written by (usually) well-intentioned folks that mistake their opinions for an encyclopedia article? No listing of such article-essays are part of this piece, but you all know who you are. If you would like to confess, leave your comments after this Signpost article.