You seem to regard the MIT team as one team - that's an error to begin with.
The MIT team existed for a very long time in many different incarnations and many different groups. They did not all play together, from what i know there were periods of animosity between the various factions.
Some of the incarnations were profitable and some were not. The MIT team that i think you are thinking of is the SI group. As far as i'm aware this was not a profitable time - they initially made a large amount of money, but a lot of that was lost later when they tried applying more advanced strategies.
There are varying accounts as to why this particular group lost most of what they won - some say the check-out proceedures weren't tight enough, other say that the advanced strategies were too difficult to apply or too high variance.
The MIT team covered in BM's book and the recent heap of **** dumped at your local cinema was a smaller group that splintered off from SI and focused primarily on where they felt the money was made before - team counting. That particular group - having spoken to several of the members, seem to have been fairly profitable. I say fairly simply because they did earn a lot of money but they also had a lot of players, so i imagine that it was very profitable for the major players on that team and not so profitable for the rest.
I would also hasten to add that this is just what i've picked up through conversation with some of the players involved and some people who knew the players involved - and i may have filled in some blanks along the way. This is in no way statement of fact.
And have we not just had this MA rubbish only a few weeks ago? The only people complaining about this seem to be the ones that aren't playing seriously enough to be damaged.
RJT.
