Thanks for the input.  This article went through a number of iterations and was reviewed by at least 5 different people for readability.  That's not to say that I couldn't have done a better job, but I'm not a professional writer. 

A few notes:  I presented the normalized table structure first because I was working on the assumption that that is the starting point and that the majority of the audience should be familiar with it.  I wanted to show how well meaning, but generally ignorant, database designers actually ruin a well designed database by including this extra step.  I further wanted to show how this extra step was not only not beneficial, it takes one back to all the problems that were resolved by normalization.

Not to blame others for any problems that might exist in the article, but many of the parenthetical points (and I know there are a number of them) were actually in response to questions my various reviewers asked.  "What about this?", "So, are you saying...?" etc...