The first thing you learn in Decision Science is the quality of a decision (judgment) should be evaluated by the resources (data, people, time, etc) you had at the time of making that decision and the process you used to make the decision - not the results. Choosing to make a decision by considering an item in isolation, without preponderance of the available historical data, may lead to poor decision quality. Just sayin'...I run into this all the time at work BTW.
I'll posit here one doesn't even need the historical data for this particular matter. In fact, you said it Mike - Gene could very well have simply shown the cross-over without mentioning the brand but he didn't. That's a hint right there that all is not well and one is well-justified in deciding he took a shot. It doesn't mean that Gene may not be right, but he's definitely taking a shot.
