I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I can think of ways going for specific formula could be both better and worse. The localised error messages are also a double edged sword - if you can solve your own problem based on the message, they're better, but if you need to Google it your chances of finding a solution go down due to fewer hits.
Localized error messages have pretty much been a curse for me every time I encounter non-trivial ones. Quite often they end up being horrible mistranslations of the original text and terminology that make them hard to understand.
I get the need for interface localization, but I prefer no translation to a bad one. And many translations are bad.
