My understanding for the disappearance of manuals and boxes is that:

• They are expensive to produce (like those lovely manuals we used to get from Macromedia)
• They have a limited life span; once a version ends, they go to the dump (money and waste), and the vendor pays for that
• Retailers don't want or accept big software boxes, if they carry software at all

I've never been the decision maker on these things (the parent company of Meshbox has though), but I have translated my share of manuals for software and game companies - so Ive seen the hair pulling ;-)

Best regards,

chikako
Meshbox Design | 3D Models You Want