In the "Minimalism in complex knowledge domains: can it be done?" section, there's a discussion of minimalist documentation. I've always minimalist idea intriguing, but have never been able to recognize it myself for a number of reasons (software is too complex, need to explain general processes in detail, and the requirement to document around bugs).
However, I liked this:
"Galyna says that minimalist documents should not only contain procedures. Users need more information. As with all types of documentation, two problems that technical authors have are deciding on the level of detail and organising the tasks."
This is the crux of technical writing: you want to provide the steps to help the user solve their problem, but you also need to provide the bigger picture. Galyna's advice seems to be moving away from minimalism, but I think that's almost unavoidable for most application help.
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