The NYTimes quotes Edward Tufte saying that Powerpoint limits presentations to such minimal information as to distort them. You can't easily put much text on a slide, or easily show connections between points--and the bullet model isn't the most appropriate for all presentations.
Amen. It may be OK for trying to decide between "tastes great" and "less filling," but it (and OpenOffice's equivalent) is painful to use when describing an analysis.
I know that you can only put so much info on the screen and expect people to be able to read it (focus!--and don't get me started on remote video: it's like trying to read through jello). The discipline of paring down your speech to the important points is hard to acquire, and Powerpoint helps with that. But when you share details--and lots of them--with people who care about the details, Powerpoint is a mess.
FWIW, our solution is to provide all presentations on the net, so that remote sites (like mine) or laptop users can read the details in a PostScript or PDF file.
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