We wanted to make things fast-paced, switch among topics relatively quickly, and to have all four of us participating more rather than less. Think one main presenter at a time, with others jumping in with additional information, questions, or even alternative viewpoints. Last-minute changes (that seemed like a good idea at the time) -- coupled with an unexpected shortage of wireless mics -- made that a lot harder to do. I'm oversimplifying, of course, but you get the idea.

All four of us have done "pair presentations" before, so we know that can work well, but the jury's still out on how to make it scale. :-)

Actually, I think this might have worked well as a planned thing -- "We're the presenters, but we've asked a couple other people to jump in if we miss something."

So you can see how we thought that what I described above could work. I did ask Schwern to show up, and Mark was a pleasant surprise. (Really, I mean it.)

sorry if they came out too harsh

Oh, no worries. Believe me, I expected much worse... and it's probably out there, waiting for me to find it. :-)