John,
Susana (sp?) works with Archuleta, and this is the sort of thing they do. Jamie Steidl is a former Archuleta student who is still at UCSB, and he did slip distributions for his thesis.. I don't remember if Susana got hard questions when she gave the talk at UCSB... perhaps only Archuleta and Steidl were qualified to give her a hard time and wee not about to because it is what they do.. At Istanbul, I was so stressed out that I don'r remember anything about anything.
Ralph Archuleta gave a talk at UCSB way back...may have been 1990 or so, where he pretty much said the characteristic earthquake concept was not useful (or something like that).

Send Susana Custodio an email and ask your questions directly. She was at UCSB when I was there Feb 22.
Chris