I suggest that the reconstruction of PTB [Proto-Tibeto-Burman] is a noble enterprise, where a spirit of competitive territoriality is out of place. W… - James Alan Matisoff

The severe difficulties in attempting a rigorous reconstruction of Proto-Tibeto-Burman on this basis [of scant data] have not prevented certain hardy souls from leaping to ever more far-flung comparisons (particularly of Tibetan or Burmese with Old Chinese, or even with Thai) in an attempt to say something about the great Sino-Tibetan proto-language. There are no doubt those who would have tried to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European simply on the testimony of Provençal, Avestan, and Old Norse. We are only now becoming more realistic. It seems wiser to concentrate for the time being on reconstructing PTB sub-group by sub-group...

...the more I learn about Lahu the less I think I know. It has seemed that the more fluently I came to speak the language, the more apt people were to correct my mistakes, and the less likely they were to accept unidiomatic utterances from me.

The computer will be crucial to handle the etymological information explosion of the future, but machines will never be able to do all the work for us. There will still doubtless be room for gut feelings, intuitions, temperamental quirks, and professional rivalries, even in the Computer Age. In making etymological 'judgment calls' there will never be a substitute for hands-on human experience in a given language or language family.