Pitching to an editor is like communicating a symphony by humming the theme of the finale. Unless you've got a knock-em-flat idea that can be conveyed in all its dimensions in one sentence, it simply doesn't work 99 per cent of the time. Also, while I agree with you on the "write-to-length" issue, isn't it an editor's job to, you know, at least think about how to make pieces fit the page? So, if they don't read and/or respond to >80 per cent of submissions, and they don't play any part in page layout or lengthening/shortening articles, can someone tell me what it is that editors actually do then?
I've been on both sides of the fence as an editor and submitter.
Hearing nothing back is most frustrating, a simple 'No thanks' will suffice and I am always half suspecting to see an idea I have suggested appearing a few months later under a staff writers byline.
On the editor's side, and I am not suggesting this of anyone here, sometimes the writer's opinion of their own merits does not match the reality. While they may think they are sending delightful prose that will surely blow the mind of any mortal who may have the fortune to read it, quite often what you receive is poorly constructed, not spell-checked and either so long it would need about an eight-page spread to fit or so brief that it would only be of use as a sidebar to a bigger piece.
As a rule of thumb, I'd only ever submit a one paragraph overview of an article to an editor. If that catches his/her eye they will give you a word count and a deadline. It would be an extreme example where I would receive a fully-written piece that can go straight into a magazine.
Timing is also important. A good magazine typically has its contents planned out at least two issues in advance. If you were to send an article today about an issue or topic that was relevant now it might well be that the magazine has no space to fit the piece in until several months later, by which time it is out of date. Unless it is an amazing piece few editors would be likely to rearrange their plans to cater for an unsolicited freelance piece.
I can only speak for myself for what an editor does, I read some well-known publications with myriad staff and wonder myself what exactly the editor does. I was particularly delighted to see the back of one editor recently whose 'Editorial' each month basically seemed to be 'blah blah blah, I met this celebrity, blah blah blah, guess where I have been jetting off to, blah blah, blah, ME, ME, ME, blah, blah, blah, oh by the way we have an article about this'.
For me though, we had the magazine owner above me and I had two assistants and a designer and that was it. So in a typical month I'd have to brainstorm ideas, plan the contents and layout of the magazine, have this plan approved by the owner, contact all the freelancers, arrange deadlines with them, source all the pictures for the magazine, write my own articles, write articles for and maintain the magazine website, chase up competition winners for their addresses and arrange delivery of their prizes, chase freelancers up for their copy after they had missed their deadlines, sub and edit down freelancers copy - particularly hard with the ones who you would send a style-guide to every month and who would consistently refuse to adhere to it but were on a retainer so you couldn't not use them, send subbed copy and images to the designer, liaise with the advertisers to get their new artwork, sub down the copy in the designed pages to make it fit, chase the advertisers again, validate the finished pages with the editor, argue back and forth with the owner and designer over the cover layout, send all finished pages to the publishers, react to the publishers demands to change everything on the cover at the last minute, sub the copy that has finally come in at the last minute way after deadline, proof read all the final PDFs again, send the final PDFs to the printers, add in the time sensitive copy that absolutely cannot go in until the Monday morning we went to print, call the advertisers again for artwork to fill the blank advertising page that has to print in literally two hours time, call the advertisers again, call the advertising contact every name under the sun, discover that some breaking news completely changes the context of your cover story so frantically rework it, finally get your last advert page, send the final PDF to the printers, sit around for a few hours until the printer confirms all pages are OK, have a five minute break and then return to the start of the cycle...
So, I can quite well understand why some editors will prefer to just use the same tried and trusted freelancers rather than follow up speculative submissions. You just want whatever will make your month the easiest!
