Jon Agley: His Values Are Off

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23602_Grinding_A_Question_Of_Values.html

There's so much wrong with this that I don't even know where to start.  I would totally normally make this a blog post, but I just can't be bothered so I'll make a long comment here.
1)  The article you mentioned was published on THIS SITE (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23253_The_Problem_With_Planeswalker_Points.html), the fact that you couldn't even do the most basic of research for this piece is pretty telling (and indicative of the overall quality (which is, unsurprisingly, lacking).
2)  Don't act like you're not judging, it's 100% clear that you are and trying to fall back on "The purpose of this article is not to pass judgment on specific valuations of the Pro Tour" is cowardly (but you're very skilled at cowardly, as we'll cover in future points).
3)  I really enjoyed how you tried to act very intellectual in your analysis of PWPs and valuations, but completely failed in doing so.
4)  "Isn't it terrible that these players had to take these extreme actions to grind PWP?":  No one ever said it was the system's fault that people did this.  What Kibler was pointing out was the system rewarded things it shouldn't and that people, even if they were dumb enough to do objectively stupid actions, should not be rewarded for doing so.
5)  Name names.  There are only TWO pieces that can maybe be described as "tell-all":  Carrie Oliver's (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/feature-article-on-the-grind/) and mine (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/chrismascioli-chasing-kate-why-and-how-i-qualified-for-pro-tour-dark-ascension/) and not listing them is a great injustice if you want to discuss them.  I was 100% open in my article, the least you could do is be a bit more open about your intentions here (which were to judge me).
6)  Your contentions are just wrong:  "100 people who were willing to do the most to secure an invitation (i.e., ostensibly, those who valued a Pro Tour invitation the most as evidenced through their quantifiable actions)"
a)  This is just untrue, it wasn't the 100 people who were willing to do the most, but the 100 people who were in the best position to do the most.  The PWP system was extremely USA-centric so those that were in the northeast or were able to go to Worlds and lock up a qualification did so.
b)  They did not necessarily value the invite most, human behavior is not a direct correspondence between value and commitment, but is also guided by the probability of success.  For example, someone could value a date with [insert celebrity here] VERY highly, but they'd never place any time into it because P(success) is so low.  Some kid in Europe could have valued the invite much higher than any of us who actually qualified, but because he couldn't afford to go to Words, his P(success) was low and he put 0 effort into the system instead.
7)  "Recall that this isn't a social, political, or economic system in which one can argue the chicken-and-egg syndrome (does the system cause the behavior or does the behavior necessitate the system?). This is a qualification system for a collectible card game.:  What purpose does this line serve other than to attempt to belittle the people who wanted to qualify for the Pro Tour?  I'm so sorry something I wanted to do isn't important enough for Jon Agley, who wants to appoint himself God for a day, to think it was important.
8)  "Assuming a method of ensuring such a process would not ultimately be fatal, I have no doubt that a number of players would qualify for the tour via Scorpion Bath (SBQ).":  Just listing some more quotes that prove that you have no idea what you're talking about.
9)  "It illuminated the manner in which many people in young adulthood are identifying and valuing different aspects of their lives":  It didn't do this at all, at least for me (which you would know if you actually read my article).  I used the PWP system as an escape from other aspects of my life; it was dumb, but it doesn't come close to defining my life.

tl;dr:  This article is bad and you should feel bad for writing it.