buckworks - 10:32 pm on Sep 3, 2012 (gmt 0)

If you want to directly address something in the OP, how about this one:

"Make no mistake, the AdSense program competes for limited advertising money with the AdWords program. A weak AdSense program keeps more money in Google's pocket.

<puts on advertiser's hat>

The comment about "competes for limited advertising money" does not match my experience on the advertising side. Running ads on the content network doesn't reduce what we're willing to spend on search ads, or vice versa; they're not in competition. We want strong ads on both search AND content, it's not either/or.

The only limitation is ROI.