You're right about that. "I will work up a revision to the articles and submit it to Larry for update." My memory stuck Erick in place of Larry.

Thanks for the offer, Marc, but I'll pass. I have no more desire to do that now than I did a few years ago, for the exact same reasons.

RCU's reviews simply are not impartial, free-speaking reviews in my opinion. I've come to this through talking with the people involved, reading a great many of them, reading of other peoples' experiences in the forums, and my own experiences. So much more could be done with the format, to make them truly useful. Incorporating certain small facts, such as the disposition of the model, and number of flights prior to the review being written (is two or three really enough to get to know an airplane?) wouldn't just add credibility, they'd add some real basis for understanding the author's opinion of the model. Follow-ups wouldn't be very difficult to do, would they? My opinion on a product often changes as time goes on. Some discussion of value and comparison to possible substitutes would certainly make the reviews follow a thought process much more like that of a person considering a product, rather than a person accentuating the positives and minimizing the negatives. Linking to forum threads discussing the products certainly would help the reader to find more opinions.

When it comes down to it, Marc, what's the purpose that you see the RCU review program serving? Additional page views? Positive relations with advertisers? Rewarding those that have put time into RCU with a token of thanks? Informing members about products they're likely to be interested in? Providing the real skinny on such products? I think those are all purposes of the program. What order they fall into in terms of priority I don't know--I can only form my own opinions about that. I do know that there is room for improvement.