[parhurs]

To blindly assume patterns such as "80/20" hold everywhere would be foolish - rather, it is better to empirically verify them first in each case (as done by the article). Further, I wonder what makes you think the writer is surprised in the least...

[joelrunyon]

I don't think it's foolish. When it shows up as often it does, it's smart to see if it applies there.

You can verify it, but it seems like a smart hypothesis to start with rather than assuming the inverse.

[rytill]

To a point... but it's so prolific that you should be testing to falsify it most of the time.

[xenihn]

>To blindly assume patterns such as "80/20" hold everywhere would be foolish

I see 80/20 EVERYWHERE now. It's hard for me to think of things where it isn't applicable. Maybe I'm just going crazy.

[exolymph]

The point of heuristics is not that they apply 100% of the time, but that they're correct more often than they're not.