While the RFC'S do hold useful information I think how it was/is used was/is damaging to the growth of networking related information technology.
The RFC'S request for comments while organized were not organized in a very useful manner and were very much so simply a message board that network guru's "Requested Comments" from other network guru's. Sure clearly some RFC'S where used in hopes of getting things standardized but there was also a lot of what I would consider spam information thats completely unusable:
tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2468
A footnote by Steve Crocker Titled I remember IANA:
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Also some information within RFC's are completely incomprehensible much like some things are on this forum to anyone but the people communicating though the RFC's them selves. The entire idea of the RFC's was to get "UNPOLISHED" publications out in the open which was great for the time and what it was used for but should never be used as a final draft which it seems many RFC'S were/are. That being said there IS historical value in the RFC's because they were basically communication channels used by the people making the important early networking tools and standardizations even if they were nothing more than a glorified BBS.
And before I get chewed out for dissing the RFC series here is one of the more recent comments (clearly outside the academic community) in reply to RFC 1:
"RFC 1: I've got a five inch taint"
(Submitted on 4/7/2004 and still visible)
But to answer you original question: "I'm curious as to how many RFCs you have read/partially read or glanced through?"
Too Many without getting enough practical information out of it. I think RFC's are great if your doing a dissertation from a historical reference or looking at one of the well-known well-authored RFC's but if you pick a random RFC and read it end to end theres a good chance that it would mean nothing of use to you or that it was "Obsoleted by" another RFC and yet unmarked as such. However if you use RFC's in tandem with other research tools like google theres a good chance that you will run across something cool like:
www.bbn.com/timeline/
Alternatively if you check out some of the biography info on noted RFC NWG commenter's the backgrounds on some of these guys explains a why certain concepts came about.
