I paste your entire missive below, just in case you decide to change your post again.

"I received your annual catalog in the mail and wanted to share some thoughts about it with you, as a friend and customer.

I don’t think you need it anymore. I know I don’t. Catalogs are dead, IMHO.

I tossed it in the recycling (no malice) because when I shop Defender I go right to your web site, even on the boat where I have cellular broadband Internet. On your site I get color pictures, latest prices, in-stock status and rebate/sale info. I can also build a shopping cart which is saved with a browser cookie so it’s there when I return to your site to place an order later. Very convenient.

No doubt some people keep it lying around on a coffee table or next to the bed and mark the pages of interest with dog ears, and perhaps you pick up extra sales from catalogs that were laying around or got passed on. I think you should survey your regular clients and find out how many would prefer to save a few trees and forego the catalog. You might be able to save quite a bit of money for 2013."

If the bolded statement does not represent broad brush thinking, I'd like to know what does.

Statements like "catalogs are dead" are quite narrow minded, though I can't say I haven't heard them before from the iPhone / iPad crowd. I have served on the board of our yacht racing association for a number of years. A big project of mine is putting together our official yearbook, which includes the prior year's results, current season's schedule, rules on eligibility, promotional write-ups on every race, information on dockage and moorings at every port, lots of pictures (photos of both sailing and awards banquet), tide charts, and a whole lot of other information. Some people have suggested it be abolished, because the information is available on line. I tell them it's a bad idea for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, not everyone has unlimited on-line access with them everywhere they go, and even if they do, it can be spotty and a PITA. I know that is hard to believe but it is true. When I'm on the boat and, say, an hour out of Boothbay Harbor, it's way easier to grab the yearbook and look up Tugboat Inn and Marina's phone number than it is to try to get it to come up on a Blackberry.

Second, copies of our printed yearbook are left in boatyards, marinas, yacht clubs, and other places where they serve as an eye-catching piece of promotional material -- something someone can pick up, look at, and take with them. We're talking people who don't know our organization exists and have never been to the website.

Third, the yearbook serves as a nice memento and historical record. I've got about the last ten years' worth saved and look at them from time to time.

Fourth (and I think the reason it has survived): Our yearbook generated nearly $3K in net income last year (advertising revenue minus production, printing, and mailing costs). Our web site, OTOH, COST us $2K in maintenance fees and generated no revenue whatsoever. Yet our website person is one of those who wants to see the printed yearbook eliminated. Go figure.

Any communications/marketing person worth his/her salt advises that a multimedia approach is best for reaching the desired audiences. Online alone is not enough, nor is print. You do both and cross-promote. Different people have different preferences, and declaring with a broad brush that a certain channel is dead is a bad idea from a communications standpoint. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to get the iPhone crowd to understand that because many seem to live in their own digital world.

BTW, Randy's eyes lit up when the Defender catalog showed up last week. Not unlike the reaction we got as kids when the oft-anticipated Sears Wish Book of Christmases past arrived in the mailbox.