The conversations about soft pictures made me think about the pictures I take. In certain pictures, such as portraits, I like soft pictures. I think it's complimentary to the subject. I recently did two shoots, one of a newborn baby and one of a family. I presented two sets of proofs to each customer; one set as taken, and the other set were the same proofs but using my Paint Shop Pro Photo's "glamour" filter which softens the pictures. Both customers went gah-gah over the proofs that I used the filter on. My camera though does not tend to take soft pics as the Canon ones mentioned seem to. I tend to have the opposite result with my Olympus, my pics tend to have a lot of sharpness.
I think soft pictures are similar to changing to B&W as they also hide sins :) So while I see how it would be frustrating to find you're always having to adjust post production (I do but for other reasons), I think sometimes shooting soft can give positive results. I wouldn't want it when shooting wildlife, scenery, etc. but for portraits it can be a plus.