> Do the benefits outweigh the problems?

In my opinion? Conditionally... yes.

I think the idea of what wiki *should have been* has been bastardized.

***What Wiki Should Have Been:***

"Community wiki" should be rare. If you agree that all questions on the site should be *answerable* programming questions and not subjective discussion, then where wiki comes into play is that rare situation where the question is **answerable... but the answer is built up by group of people**.

An example where wiki could work:

> I am working on a C#.net team doing A, B, and C. My job is to author a style guide for my team. What should I be sure is include in that style guide?

Since the "answer" will ultimately be a collaborative work, each contributor is, in effect, relinquishing individual ownership of the answers by contributing to a larger body knowledge. That's wiki.

***What Wiki Has Become***

 - I have a question that would be closed but, if I make it community wiki, I might just squeeze it by.
 - I have an answer that will probably be down-voted, so I will wiki-fy it so it doesn't affect my account.
 - I want my "accept rate" to be higher so, if I don't find an acceptable answer, I'll just make my question community wiki so it isn't "counted."
 - We need a way to disconnect a post from the reputation system, for whatever reason. Too much editing? Wiki. Too many answers? Wiki. User's going to get more reputation than warranted? wiki.

If there needs to be a mechanism where reputation is no longer appropriate, maybe we need another term or mechanism to facilitate that.

Just my opinion.