In reply to John2:
Quip U for leisure is now the shitest f*cking horror show I've ever had the misfortune to climb at Avon. Not only that, it's gonna kill someone. As you well know, that's saying something, but I'd prefer to be murdered by someone who tells me they're gonna do it, and then does it (naturally, after I've tried reason at length, and they still feel we have to agree to disagree, but that the only satisfactory conclusion for them is the immediate death of one of us), much more so rather than be manslaughtered due to incompetence.
You're right to point it out as a `counter example' under the assumption of "it's in a climber's club guidebook with a name and a grade and a first attempt even though they cheated like hell, so it's worthy of consideration". If you'd actually done it you'd know it is worthy of one thing from any reasonable competent person - pure unbridled contempt. And a massive health warning.
From this poor example of shit pegs, I unjustifably deduce that any corporate interference with the placing of fixed gear is totally bad for the sport, even when done much better as in this case, albeit on a totally crap non crag. The purveyors of the original phrase didn't anticipate cases where the actual antagonists of it were soft and mushy, and scrapable and ignorable, rather than hard and strong, worthy of being at the tip of a forefront of something, anything, (albeit a wedge of crap). It's still the thin end of the wedge even it it's crap.
The French have used corporate and or council sponsored bolting for years, even in the guise of mountain guides. The French have numerous world class crags that were bolted at the initiative of local climbers working independently of any sponsorship. The French also have such an unimaginably large heap of bolted crap, it's suddenly understandble why they don't bother to star anything and everyone works on rumour and what the mags and their mates think instead, and even why Alain Robert gave up and started to climb bulidings. And that's now all they know. It's as if in the medieval period of art, they ran out of canvasses and culture there never progressed further.
Now I have ambitions for England, even in its far reaches such as Settle. Maybe it's my naivety speaking when I say when, like resentfulness and smugness, maybe we can learn from France's mistakes, and like developing world class crags properly, fresh bread that's worthwhile, pastry, nuclear power and a welfare state that works, maybe we can learn from the best of them.