ASE follows these general rules regarding when to send error messages to the errorlog
1) Messages with a severity 19 or higher are sent to the errorlog.
2) Messages with a severity lower than 19 are sent to the errorlog when encountered by system processes (as there is no client to send them to).
3) Messages that have had sp_altermessage <error>, "with_log", "true" run on them are sent to the errorlog.
Many of the "out of resource" type of message have a severity level of 17, so by default are only reported to the client application. I've often heard from database administrators that they were surprised that certain messages were not being reported in the log. Common examples include 1105 (out of space on segment), 1204 (out of locks), 701 (insufficient procedure cache memory). Documentation on severity levels is at http://infocenter.sybase.com/help/topic/com.sybase.infocenter.dc31654.1570/html/sag1/sag1568.htm
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Note: just to complicate the issue slightly, the Error Messages guide and the master..sysmessages table document a severity level but occasionally have been incorrect (1204 is raised with severity 17 is still shown in sysmessages as being 19, for instance). Some messages may be raised with different severity levels depending where in the code they are raised. The severity level value in the sysmessages table is just documentary; the severity level hardcoded in the ASE sourcecode is what actually determines the severity level used.
The question I'd like to put out there is "What messages have you encountered that you thought should go to the ASE errorlog by default that weren't going there?" I'll put a summary of the answers in a feature request change request (CR).
-bret