I can only agree that it is generally not very insightful — however, tracking might help some people focus and help them not necessarily understand, but realise, as in take a more emotionally loaded grasp, what is happening. In general, I would refrain from absolute when it comes to motivation science.
One practical application that I have found to Moves (one of the tools listed there, and the most used one) is journaling: not really detailing how much calories I have burned, bus simply where I was, and what I’ve done. The integration with FourSquare is great to help me remember “that great little restaurant I when to when I was in Barcelona… was that in June or April?”
In my experience — admittedly anecdotal and (I wish on everything that is precious) representative to no one — I torn my knee a year ago: ACL, the very bad kind. The pain… I spent a month in bed, convinced for the first two weeks I might not ever walk on my own (that wasn’t remotely possible, and sometimes making a jockish surgeon burst out laughing at your naïveté is all you need to feel oddly better). I still couldn't barely walk and had to: exercise, as soon and as hard as you can, is the only treatment. Moves really helped me track my every step there, and a dozen stepped counted at the time. I am emotionally quite fragile in general, more so then (because the accident had cost me a good client, delayed an interview with an amazing company, forced my long-distance girlfriend and I to cancel holidays together, ridden me to a windowless bed while Spring was finally out) and the pain… Without that bouncy blue dot proclaiming 360 steps was a ‘Personal record!’ I wouldn’t have gone through it nearly as well. Without the app to track on its own the time it took me to tumble on crutches to my very good, very busy and very time-conscious physical therapist (a block away, that is… 20 minutes the first days), I would have had no idea how to be there on time. Not representative, indeed. Bit not useless.
None of the tracking apps that I’ve used have had the expected impact: some revealed to me how my psyche was at stake more than training, some that GPS technology sucks, or that good design is still direly needed… None (with the notable exception of Moves) I’ve used durably, but all have had a positive, eye-opening experience on me. Often, help me realise what you describe quite well. But experiencing it still beats reading about it.