>The common sense is in the fact that the flashing warning lights and signs are consistently used everywhere for over a hundred years. Then there is a point in their existence.
>
>And it just may be that the millions of dollars for the research were spent by the managers trying to prove their own importance... :)

The brute force argument doesn't work. I don't care how much it cost. No matter how it cost, it's still a Hollywood movie - remember Titanic, when the size of the budget was its most important sales pitch?

Googling "million dollar research" gives you 21 million hits. So it's probably not such a big thing at all... anyone can waste money on pointless research, and it happens a lot :).

A simple rule of thumb: if it's far from the reader and you want to get his attention, flash. If it's right in front of his nose and you want to annoy him, flash. If it's a little piece of something in a corner of a screen and you want attenttion, flash it. In any other situation, better don't.

I could have written this for not millions of dolars - just remove the plural here and I'd still be fine.