I'll give you a personal example. I worked for a big corp for 15 years, and one of our products was swings that rock infants to sleep. We came out with a new transmission design that worked better than the prior design as far as the motion goes. However, it was louder. We released it to the world market. A few months later, all of the European distributors stopped sales and returned the product to us. They had too many returns from consumers that complained the noise was too loud.
Our VP of engineering got 20 of us in a room. Most of us were engineers. The 5 engineers who worked on the swing and new transmission (me included), and the other engineers were from other teams there to help come up with a plan to fix the noise.
So the VP starts the meeting off by asking the question: "What is the problem?" In turn, the engineers start offering technical answers: "The gear teeth shape is wrong, the gear spacing is wrong, the motor torque is too high, the transmission alignment is wrong, the electronics that drive the motor is too abrupt, etc., etc." The VP says no to everyone. Finally a manager in the room says: "Sales are down". That was exactly the right answer. Europe had halted all sales on this swing. That was a major problem. A major problem that affected the entire company. That is the problem that needed to be solved.
If you apply this logic to Olhausen and Diamond, if their sales were always growing, there is no problem. Only if their sales drop substantially, and they discover the reason sales dropped is due to pocket rattle, or cushion rebound, or black marks on balls, will they do anything about it.
