"My biggest worry is that compensation may provide a nice warm feeling to system designers: that they can use compensation to solve all their problems. Then, not enough thought might go into the actual compensation process, the testing of these processes and their interactions."

Another excellent article, John. Thanks.

But there are systems designers and there are Systems Designers and only the one of them knows that compensation is Future Perfect and not Past Relative. You'll have no worries with them following processes and interactions for a sustained and sustainable nice warm feeling.