The 2009 – Downturn - Annual Resume Update podcast triggered a thought... and it hardly hurt. So far.
Is using a Linked In profile as a career management document a reasonable thing to do?
It would reduce the number of places I feel a need to update, by at least one. It would provide more information for anyone that visited my profile. Some of that information would be off target for my current goals, but is that a danger?
I would not use Linked In as a resume, nor link to it from a resume, but it seems to me that it could be very useful to make it the place that gets updated quarterly and then used as the source for a resume when one is needed.

No...lacks detail
No. Do not use LinkedIn as your career management document.
Over time your CMD will exceed several pages...and you whittle it down to a presentable resume.
If LinkedIn had an easier
If LinkedIn had an easier way to transfer from their site to a Word file, maybe.
Otherwise, you would have to copy/paste, and reformat everything.
LinkedIn Export
You can readily export your whole LinkedIn profile, including the recommendations to a PDF. If you're running anything other than a basic PDF reader, it's then a trivial export to Word or other format.
G.