Perspectives on MS Applications—All Around the Model

True optimization, I submit, involves consideration of all relevant factors which can be identified as having a significant bearing on the situation. This should be the objective. If an optimization technique can properly handle all of this, then indeed it should be employed. But our objectives should be getting the best answer, not optimization per se. We do the OR/MS community a disservice when we preach optimization for the sake of optimization. Management didn't buy it the first time around, in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and they won't buy it now.