Boring - yes, if you have a set haul route, CDL - no. But on a construction site an artic is used for many different things - at least I do. I have 2 725 Cats and have used them to haul brush, topsoil, dirt (of course), shot rock, gravel, RCP, manholes and storm structures and pretty much anything else you can think of. They are very useful machines.
They may not require the same abilities as running grade with a dozer or trenching with a hoe - but I think you guys may be oversimplifying what it takes to be a good,
productive and
safe artic operator. If you are using artics in a mass grade job the cycle time of the truck plays a very important role in the overall production goals of the day. I have one artic operator that can make at least 1-3 trips more per day than any other operator in the other truck. He is as valuable to me as the operator running the dozer at the fill line. On the topic of the fill line, a good artic operator knows where dump the fill for the least amount of pushing time for the dozer and be aware of rocks, etc that may damage an expensive tire. I have the 2 artics and a 325DL that run 10 hours shifts that have achieved over 2K CY's per day and this is a 70 acre site with at times a 1/4 mile round trip, hills and shot rock. Usual production rate is 1500-1800 CY per day with this set up. I know this may not be alot of CY for some folks but for our conditions I consider this to be within production goals.
Safety is also an issue, which was stated before and I agree whole-heartedly, these trucks can be very dangerous. They can tip over while dumping as well as being in control of a 70K+ LB vehicle on the jobsite with multiple machines, laborers and the occasional inspector or management types that may be oblivious to the haul roads.
With A/C, air ride seat and a CD player (well the '06 model) it's not a bad job (just watch Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe) and sure beats the heck out of a shovel.