I didn't like Gladwell's talk because he ignored baseball: teams like Oakland and Boston have started to understand what metrics do work in assessing player performance (Michael Lewis wrote about this in detail in "Moneyball").
By ignoring something because it doesn't fit in his neat theory, Gladwell loses credibility on this topic.
You might like to know that Malcolm was asked in an interview elsewhere about Moneyball, and he mentions it as one of his favorite books, and indeed he calls it one of the most important works of nonfiction of the past decade. Apparently he's found a way to resolve these difficulties, but not in a way that found it into a 20 minute talk -- I guess it has to wait for the book.
Yeah I have noticed that. Reading his stuff reminds me of junk food, kind of nice at the time but not long before either I want more, or regret having read it. I think its the journalist style writing that I find unsatisfying (his books are one of the few I end up leaving lying around, unfinished and never seem to want to pick up again).
By ignoring something because it doesn't fit in his neat theory, Gladwell loses credibility on this topic.