Faxes, though the concept was invented in the late 1800s, really hit it’s heyday in the 1970s. That’s over 40 years of standard business use. So, why, WHY do I need to say “please use a cover sheet”? If you fax something to an office with over a hundred staff, the chances it will be lost are immense. When I worked at Microsoft, there was a single fax number and the coversheet was how the document got e-mailed to the recipient.
So use cover sheets, please, they’re critical , valuable, and a huge time saver.