callivert - 6:09 pm on May 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

Come on, stop getting offended because they have two faces, yes they have. One for sheep and one for wolves. They're afraid of wolves.

Exactly.
Google can't give feedback about their algorithm for a very good reason: search engine spammers. If you are frustrated that you don't know more about rankings, then maybe you don't really understand just how easy it is to manipulate results when you know the algorithm.
Look at two examples from parts of the algorithm that are public knowledge: links (ie pagerank) and anchor text. Once pagerank was known, a vast industry devoted to link buying, selling, swapping and trading sprung up virtually overnight and continues to this day.
Once the anchor text rule was known, googlebombing started.
And you wonder why they won't tell us more.

Hence, after a certain point, all they can say is "just go away, stop pestering us, and build good websites." And to a certain extent this is good advice. After all, the specifics of the algorithm change, but one thing that doesnt change is that they are trying to tell the difference between good websites and bad websites.

Even without total knowledge, someone with enough resources could totally reverse engineer the google algorithm- but the resources required for such total information are out of the range of even the biggest spammers (I believe).

If there is a complete victory of spammers over google, then the value of their search engine will either be destroyed or drastically reduced. Most people commenting here will also be losers: the people gaining the most traffic will be spammers.

A problem for google is that, to an extent, everyone is search engine spamming. It's too tempting. Every time you tweak your anchor text, or restructure your site to get the "right" pages acquire the most pagerank, or do anything to help you do better in the results, you're trying to make your site more attractive to the googlebot.

I agree with the OP. Webmasters should not be infatuated with google. We're talking about business here, not boy scout clubs.
But Google are an amazing organization. At this point, entering into a business partnership with them is for many (including me) a good idea. But a business partnership is not a friendship, nor a club membership.
Having a google account doesn't make you a member of the tribe. The only members are shareholders.