Hi,Hookster -welcome to the Forum. There was actually a long discussion a while ago about "a pair of pants" -- apparently pants actually used to be two separate pieces, kind of like cowboys' chaps, that tied together at the top. I understand why English is hard to master, but I thought I had done a pretty good job of it in 52 years, which is why I was surprised to find that something that seemed perfectly natural to me was consedered "wrong." Perhaps I should have added that I would probably not write "doctor appointment" in anything formal -- I agree that "doctor's appointment" sounds more formal - but in conversation "doctor appointment" sounds perfectly fine to me. (This would also explain why it shows up less often in The New York Times.)
Grammar Geek, would you like to venture an opinion on this one?
Hookster, what part of Colorado are you in? And, to digress a little, do you consider yourself a Coloradan? I am pretty sure that when I was growing up in Denver we were all Coloradoans -- then I spent 20 years on the East Coast and returned to find that I had lost an entire syllable.