mood disorders vary greatly from patient to patient. even for social anxiety disorder the main causes and specific difficulties the sufferer faces can be drastically different from others with SA.
i don't really think it's fair to assume that medication's negative side-effets will outweigh the positive and whether taking it in general is a bad idea.
for SAers i think it's vital to do CBT or some form of therapy which involves exposure to treat their problems. for some they really benefit from medication on top of that but much of it is often our own negative thoughts on top of anxiety (though its still different from person to person).
as for other illnesses, i believe in situations where it is strictly a chemical imbalance that is the cause then medication should be considered - i mostly mean the most severe situations, e.g. bipolar disorder, psychosis, etc.
i agree that very often patients aren't educated enough on their medication and what they are getting into. for some they do research on their own but for others they may not consider that and instead just go by their doctor's word. there's a ton of info on my meds that i wouldn't know if what i learned about it was just from my doctor. that can definitely have some very negative consequences for the patient. doctors should start to always show and give the patient detailed information on the drug. i know i've heard of some cases where the person ended up having very bad side-effects they had not at all expected and it was to the point where they wanted to sue their doctor for the health damage because they were not informed that those effects were possible.
even the information that the pharmacy automatically gives a patient when first trying the drug is pretty vague, i find. every one i got lists the very general information "this drug is for anxiety. the effects may be: dizziness, weight loss, weight gain, sexual side-effects, drowsiness, insomnia, and others". maybe i'm much more apprehensive than the average person (as i did have a very bad effect when i was given an SSRI, prozak, from my idiot ex-doctor who thought it'd be a good idea for someone with bipolar. she didn't bother to really make sure it would make me manic/dysphoric and very suicidal).
i'd like it better if they were even more specific, e.g. "in analyzing studies done on this med they found that 30% experienced insomnia, 50% dizziness", etc.