I've tried to keep abreast of this discussion, but I have to admit, lengthy posts reguritating one's point of view cause me to lose interest.
I'd just like to add one recommendation. Buying psychic advice is no different than buying anything in life. Caveat emptor: Buyer beware. That doesn't mean that one shouldn't employ the services of a psychic, but rather that one should simply be aware that all things may not be as they seem.
I think there's value in what curiousgirl is attempting to share, albeit, my personal opinion is that she might be exaggerating the situation to make her point. At the end of the day, there could be value in securing psychic readings, but only if one considers the facts, one's own intuition and common sense equally when the message is offered. To cast facts, intuition and common sense aside when getting readings is folly. Rather, one should consider the psychic reading simply one piece of information to consider when weighing what one should do. In fact, perhaps it would be wise to consider a variety of psychic readings to get the best and total picture.
To gain the greatest value from others experiences, it might be wise for contributions to hone in on psychics' individual skill sets, so that other people can assemble a list of psychics to consult to secure the complete picture.
Furthermore, I think this forum would greatly benefit members if we spent more time validating the specific skills of particular psychics, rather than to try to rate them in general. We do that in other professions, so why not here?
I know I would greatly benefit from a series of new generic threads that would discuss which psychics have been most accurate in portraying feelings, events, the past, the present, timing, outcome etc from members that have been able to validate the accuracy. We all know that not every psychic will be highly specialized (and therefore most accurate) in all areas. We see and accept this in other professions all the time. Why not organize the forum by field of specialty?