when you both insist that AIM is Automatic Investment Management plain and simple (Jibes; Conrad is a bit more restrictive), that's OK by me. I don't care too much how you position your inventions. But AIM defined in this way also includes the Constant Dollar Plan, the Constant Ratio Plan and most other Formula Plans for investing, also Dollar Cost Averaging, TwinVest and SynchroVest, and X_Dev too. Under Jibes' broader definition, even plans like Mechanical Investing (see the Motley Fool messageboards) could be called AIM. Personally, I prefer to reserve the term AIM for Lichello's invention. The other plans already have names, and categories they fall under. Calling them AIM makes no sense to me. Just my opinion.
Conrad, when you describe how you developed Vortex from AIM (#msg-821362), you are only muddying the waters from a systematic viewpoint. And that is the viewpoint I picked. Vortex is much more easily described starting from the CDP than from AIM. While a historian might agree that Vortex is derived from AIM, the systematicist snorts: "by removing every feature that distinguishes AIM from the CDP and then adding another feature," and constructs a family tree like mine, with Vortex/New AIM directly derived from the CDP.
But again, call it AIM if you like! How important is this anyway?