I thought that the point of the folding the instructions story was this: DeWeese didn't like the instructions, becuase of the lack of "flow" -- and his general distaste for technology. Pirsig finds that they aren't bad as such things go, but to support his friend, starts hammering hard on one flaw: the picture is not next to the text. But as it turns out, if you had them folded correctly, the problem went away, as even Chris, the kid, could tell.
Frankly, I think that the story is more a warning to the open source community. We need to be careful about blindly criticizing the things that come out of Armonk and Redmond.
DeWeese and Pirsig would have preferred a 'quality' experience from the instructions -- instructions that actually *instruct* the reader about what is going on, so the reader understands, then can understand the way -- and its many alternatives.
But I don't see the leap to open source diversity. If there were instead a shelf foot of competing grill-assembly instructions to pick from, that would be ridiculous. It's a grill. One good set of instructions would be enough.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is about Quality, not quantity or diversity.
