Winsteps

Peggy Noonan points out the importance of myths in developing patriotism. If new immigrants to a country are not indoctrinated into the myths, they are always outsiders. Do recent immigrants into France accept the French secular myth of "Liberté, Fraternité, Equalité"? Or recent immigrants into the USA accept the self-sacrificing myth of "Give me liberty or give me death?"

Rasch measurement also has its mythic base. One myth is "Structured randomness is a fundamental aspect of the Universe" for without structured randomness measurement is impossible. Another myth is "The Universe can be understood in terms of an infinite number of unidimensional variables." Thus whenever a novel or unmeasurable situation arises, we are motivated by our myths to strive to measure it, until at last we succeed ... even if that task seems at first to be a labor of Sysiphus - another myth.

"We didn't want to say, 'Let's deny someone their ability to be combat effective because we're waiting for some perfect technology,"' said Army Col. John Burke, director of unmanned systems integration. CNN

So it is with Rasch measurement and Winsteps. We are still far from perfection, but we are certainly measurement-effective.

"Principles, rules, theory and concepts are all examples of models. Models are by definition simplifications of reality. Because they are a simplification, there is no one model, no one theory, that is all encompassing and failsafe to use. Models should not be trusted. At the same time, we need them to guide us in action and decision-making. Without models such as principles and rules, life would just be a long series of random experiments without any ability to learn from one day to the next. For that reason, we have articulated a set of principles – a model – of what we think best describes [social-science measurement]. These principles can guide us as we learn, experiment and transform our [latent variables]. These principles are not an attempt at completeness, but instead are crafted so that they are useful and effective principles to learn and internalize." [My changes]
Flinchbaugh, J. (n.d.). Beyond lean: Building sustainable business and people success through new ways of thinking. p.7 Link

In a Comment, William P. Fisher, Jr. adds "need + urgency" to the requirements for a "tip" to occur. Perhaps those will be the implosion of the Housing Bubble:

combined with the huge personal debt, trade imbalance and overspending by tax authorities. When the crunch comes, there will be an urgent need to fund "what works" in a measureable way and ditch the rest.