IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

Welcome, Mark!

That was definitely another good battle, and maybe suffered the outcome it did because Token Ring was IBM vs. the rest of the world. In the end, I really believe that it was the practicality of the physical installation and troubleshooting the technology (10baseT..not thinnet or thicknet) that won over so many converts. Token ring eventually become a star topology as well, but by then 10baseT was entrenched and 100BaseT was on the way. There were still quite a few people using Token Ring-like tech like FDDI/CDDI, but FE still won.

I think that a lot of times it comes down to purely what people are comfortable with. As you say, engineers are humans, and humans have a tendenancy to come up with the data points that support the conclusion they want, while sometimes forgetting or discounting data points that fly in the face of it.

Caveat Emptor applies to the buyer of network services just like anything else. Ask a lot of questions, and get a second or third design opinion.