Michael,
I think a tangent to Fred's point is akin to you point about Burnie Fox's recommending that book on Ortona, on which you noted a much finer pieces of scholarship. What Fred, I believe, (but I cannot of course speak for him and I may be wrong here) is saying is that he sees and believes there is finer scholarship to be had on how to handle the material WBW has published.
Now you have said you have not seen it, nor to be fair to you have I. But having listed to others comment in a similar line to Fred (EX: Pitman) there seems to be something in what they say. [Your point about what people will buy/market forces etc. still stands. But that is not what I am trying to get at here.]
Finer 'ASL scholarship' (module) on the topic is what is being called for it seems.
Great points, Andy. If you follow the tags to some of the other discussions, you'll note that at least one forum member (aside from Mark) does own some of these modules and was generous enough to post his comments. It just seems rude to keep posting about what morons purchasers would have to be when at least one of us has self-identified as having stepped forward to purchase them. Y'know? I mean, it's okay if they're anonymous screen names, but I've talked on this forum to one of the guys that bought one, and he was very generous with his time. I guess I'm trying to gently steer the conversation away from the insulting tone without preaching about it.
As an aside with regards to the Ortona thread, I started my comments there with "apologies to the original poster but..." and I gave an informed opinion - if you take a look on amazon.com you will see I've even gone so far as to exchange comments with the author of the book in question.
I agree with your good points on scholarship, but it already exists on this forum, at least in part. I've read it. Apparently, the rest of you haven't? I'd recommend it, if not. Either way, I'd keep in mind that there are some of those purchasers among us - very possibly there are more lurking here. Whether they value their investment or not, well, that's to them to decide. I paid good money in the past just to obtain empty ASL boxes I was missing from my collection and am flabbergasted that others simply throw them in the trash.