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George, you're quite right, my choice of language was very poor.
'Thrashed out before' sounds very negative when I re-read it; my
apologies. What I should have said, and meant to say, is that there was a
good conversation on this topic in the CVwiki, and that David Howe had far
and away the best post in the conversation. Using his post is not a bad
place, in my opinion, to re-start/continue the conversation from. I don't
think anyone really believes he or she is the final arbiter of chess [or if
they do, they're still too sensible to say that out loud], but Mark
Thompson's paper and David's comments on the subject, both what I quoted
from and other work, do lay out a nice basis for discussion.

Have to disagree with you on Gess; there is a royal piece, and it is made
up of several identical and interchangeable units maintaining a specific
form in the environment, much like a living creature there. Having a piece
that occupies more than one square is rare but far from unknown [someone
mentioned Giant Chess recently...]. 

You seem to imply that a CV is not a piece of art. What, then, is it?
While logic and number should play a big role in making and refining a
good CV, I think creating a CV is rarely a matter of science. Designers
have styles; many are conservative, sticking close to the 'Old Masters':
FIDE and Capa, and maybe something like Omega or Grand Chess. Some are far
more radical, designing on the fringes. Then there are the Andy Warhol
types. There are others we could find, but that makes my point for now.