the cognitive style of powerpoint

my first question is quite straight-forward, but throughout the entire reading i couldn't seem to get a grasp on how and when powerpoint found it's way into places like NASA. being everything Tufte describes it as, the least it could get away with was being acceptable as a learning tool where we first learned it, middle school. bullet by bullet introducing points meant to scribble down and recognize on a test. so how in the world did this flimsy program take the place of a written technical report? what information will we lack in the future if practices in poor powerpoint presenting continue?
after reading this, which i suppose is the point, i had no idea what we were doing with a program like powerpoint. why does it exist and why is it passed of as something we can slap together to attempt at proving earth shattering points. the name is deceptive. there are points that should have power, statistics, yet as Tufte states, "powerpoint promotes the hierarchical bullet list..."(Tufte,16) if we know that powerpoint chops our important information into oblivion and doesn't get across exactly what we mean to, then where is the misunderstanding? we are doing a disservice to ourselves, being content with representing ourselves in bulleted lists.