Return to Answer

My answer is quickly lost in a dozen others (many of which are thoughtless one-liners)

Don't worry about competition from one-liners. If your answer goes into more detail and is more helpful, you'll come out way ahead of them in reputation over the long run--even if yours is the last answer posted, and even if there was already an accepted answer.

The user never returns to evaluate and/or select the answer.

You don't need to worry too much about this either. As long as the question isn't "too localized" you'll still help others with the same problem, and earn rep in the process.

This is a lot like my answer to How can Stack Overflow encourage more thorough answers? which seems to be about your same concerns, just coming at it from a different angle.

My answer is quickly lost in a dozen others (many of which are thoughtless one-liners)

Don't worry about competition from one-liners. If your answer goes into more detail and is more helpful, you'll come out way ahead of them in reputation over the long run--even if yours is the last answer posted, and even if there was already an accepted answer.

The user never returns to evaluate and/or select the answer.

You don't need to worry too much about this either. As long as the question isn't "too localized" you'll still help others with the same problem, and earn rep in the process.

This is a lot like my answer to How can Stack Overflow encourage more thorough answers? which seems to be about your same concerns, just coming at it from a different angle.