I once worked for Electronic Arts, and they added one feature to the weekly status report that helped to make it seem less of a useless chore: the status reports were all collated and re-summarised as they passed up the chain, but the resulting document was then annotated during discussion at the board meeting, and that then passed back down the chain for everyone to see.

It really focuses your mind when your name appears in the top level report, and the chairman of the company has scrawled a 'good job', or maybe a 'why is this bozo still working for us?' against it. :)