And that's the point Kirk (as I know you know), they've (CRB ) got the tools they need to address it, should that come to pass. The fact that they folks (CRB ) are willing to trade repeatability, objectivity, and fairness for some level of perceived stability says a couple of things.

They have no faith in their own ability to handle an issue, should it arise.

The don't want to give up the power & control, and are hiding behind strategic ambiguity.

They've got something else up their sleeve

BTW, did they CRB members that this would directly impact, recuse themselves from the discussions? Just lilke you pointed out that Andy went out of his way to stay out of the 1.8 Miata discussions, did Mr. Albin and Mr. Keane stay out of the Audi discussion, or the plan to run all of ITB through the process? If not, that would seem to be a pretty clear-cut case of conflict of interest, if they voted against it.