Trying to lend respectability to a point, by demonstrating google hits, is pretty unsophisticated.

While your claiming that you can assemble a posse to support you is highly sophisticated? ;-)

Come on now. I pointed to Google to demonstrate that numbers of people cleaving to an idea is not any sort of "proof". It can be a powerful force, but it doesn't prove anything by itself.

I've found that in the 'academic' world, the number of people who advocate SPs is greater than the number who reject them.

You're hob-nobbing with University Professors, are you? ;-) I'm sure they'll be able to confirm that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data". ;-)

In client sites [i.e., outside of academia], I find that SPs are heavily embraced. Why do you suppose that is?

Probably because you've embraced dotNET. ;-)

I know of multiple installations that generate at least 3 stored procedures per table as a practice.

Of course I can see reasons why that might be a cool habit. I've been using SP against Oracle and SQL Server for ten years now, but I'd like to think I still have the ability to always ask why.