[spydum]

i tend to get to debug problems like this (usually in 3rd party code i dont know the internals of) pretty frequently.. my experience has been it tends to follow a curve..MOST of the time, the problem is simple and you can quickly dispatch it. the scary (or fun, depending on your perspective) part hits when you pass the first level, and there are still problems.. and you dont know if it's two or ten levels deeper. then you get into that crazy test/optimize cycle and crawl out two weeks later wondering when you last ate..