Difficulty finding documentation (and how to use the docs) for command-line programs

It seems that I always need some obscure feature of a program. However, 
despite using various unixes and linux (as a business user, not as a tech 
person) for 14 years, I am still stymied by the difficulty in figuring out 
where to find the documentation for any given program, particularly 
command-line programs.

My server has 100s of MB of docs. But that is usually of little help.

If 'man programname' doesn't work, I am in trouble.  Between help and info 
and perldoc and stuff in postscript and this and that and whatever, it is a 
mess.

In many cases, if I knew how to find and use the docs, I would not have the 
question that I have.

Linux has to be more friendly to the non-technical user, especially when it 
comes to the accessibility of (and readability of) the docs.  In a perfect 
world, there would be an accepted standard of how one determines where the 
docs are and how to use them.  Doing something like 'programname --docs' 
should tell you where the docs are installed *on your system* and how to 
invoke them or use them; and if any special doc-reading program is needed, 
how to find out how to run that.

*I do like computers,* but I earn my living by using the output of the 
programs I run to increase my productivity so that I can deliver my 
product/service faster, at less cost, and in better quality.  I don't earn 
my living trying to figure out how to make a program work the way I want it to.

Jay