So Rufus, you are finally getting around to acknmowledging PE did come about due to the nature of the fossil record, and that PE advocates claimed it wasn't incompleteness primarily, but rather the mode of evolution was different.
Can you not see the staggering consequences of this?
Critics of evolution long contended the fossil record did not show evolution, at least not according to the evolutionary models at the time. They were right, but the evolutionists refused to admit it.
Now, Gould and Eldridge come along and basically state the same thing only with the caveat that the data can fir into their new model of evolution, Punctuated Equilibrium. Initially, many were simply unaware it seemed that the fossil record did show stasis and sudden appearance, despite critics pointing that out for decades.
Why were they unaware? Think about it.
This whole process shows how evolutionists selectively only consider data that supports their predetermined views, and unless that data can fit into evolutionary dogma, it is rejected. The fossil record did not change. The reason the evolutionists finally admitted to stasis and sudden appearance is that they could now admit to it and still claim a way that this could ("could" not does I might add) fit into an evolutionary model.
The implications of the actual process of PE coming about are simply staggering. Let's don't play word-smithing games. You know full well that PE was advocated because the fossil record did not fit into prior evolutionary models, or at least that is what Gould and Eldridge believed at that time.