Ironically TL;dr. Not sure I got much out of it. Some of my best practices when talking to developers at my company: -Do not leave voice mails. Go see them in person if you can. -If your signature is longer than your short email and/or contains graphics, rethink your signature. -Turn off HTML in your email client. -Expect in-line responses.

The biggest irony of all of this is that I see so many technical recruiters who have massively long signatures with a bunch of graphics.

Great article, unreasonable demands are often tough to debunk. I agree with the fact is that often, the requirement needs has to asked differently. That would often prompt the developer to try to meet the requirement as close as possible instead of just saying no.

Unsupported assertion:

"Compounding this problem is the unspoken yet universally acknowledged truth that many people drawn to technical professions are not very adept in social interaction."