Hmmm, without getting bogged down in the original argument, I'll suggest to Mike that he looks (by scrolling down the page) at some of the resources at:
http://www.crm-devel.org/resources/crmtopic.htm
in particular reading about PACE (it's a heavy and blunt instrument and not one that works in every case) at:
http://www.crm-devel.org/resources/paper/PACE.PDF
