Matt Cutts posted a video answering a question about Google reading reconsideration requests. In short, Google reads and responds virtually all reconsideration requests submitted by Webmasters.

Here is the video:

At one point, I thought maybe some of the replies were automated, but I was wrong. They may have templated responses that seem unhelpful, but those are not triggered automatically.

Here is the transcript:

Forum discussion at Google+.