Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
Well there is another approach often used in Sociology. Find 2 groups with as much overlap in factors as possible...
Interesting -- is that a name for this approach so I can read more about it? Not being sarcastic, it seems a good approach to analyse some educational techniques (e.g. which factors have more influence on Problem Based Learning).
But in a software development workplace it has the advantage of leaving precious little time for development itself :-)