Be aware of who the sponsor and or the author is of any study you read. Many times sales manuals are foisted off as real-world studies. Cisco maintains that they achieve five nines. If you read in say, Network World Fusion, you will see that a lot of companies are running away due to the lack of five nines. Try going to the website for that mag. I don't know how friendly they are. I don't know what your access to old articles will be but, if you answer some question right you will get a free subscription. It is a wonderful resource and tool. The web address is
www.nwfusion.com. Also, search this message board and the PBXinfo board for other discussions heald on this topic. You should be able to build a pretty good business case why you don't want to through good money after bad. The New York Times technology section also has covered this topic.
rlc