Microsoft's BI Certifications

Duane Douglas posted a thread for discussion on the Integration Services forums a while back that I'd been thinking of myself.  The basic thrust of the conversation has been whether the current structure of the Microsoft Certifications relating to Business Intelligence make sense.  Indirectly, it also questions the value of such certifications in general - which seems to be a perennial question.
In my opinion (shared by several others in the thread), the current certification makeup doesn't make tremendous sense - although I can understand why it would be the way it is.  Currently, there are two certifications - Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance, and Designing a Business Intelligence Infrastructure Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008.  In general, the "TS" (Technology Specialist) certifications are geared toward lower-level (as in nuts and bolts) as well as lesser-experienced candidates.  The "ITP" (Information Technology Professional) certifications tend to target higher-level (as in design and architecture) as well as more-experienced candidates.
What's Wrong With That?
In reviewing the TS and ITP certs for BI last year when I decided to take one, I found not much difference between the two (on paper).  Not having taken the ITP exam yet - I can't comment directly on the relative difficulty of the two exams.  (And by the time I take it, if I do, I'll surely have forgotten all about the TS exam.)
The difficulty that Duane, I, and others have with the current structure and philosophy of SQL BI certifications is that it doesn't truly seem to reflect the path of progression of a DBA/developer/information worker/whatever you might call yourself as it relates to the SQL Server BI stack.  From my own experience, it seems as though one would have to concentrate in one "product" (such as Integration Services, Analysis Services, or Reporting Services), learn it, then move on to the next.  Now, I can totally see that not everyone would progress from IS to AS to RS.  In fact, I can see individuals hired to work on one, and only one, of those products in a larger shop.  However, that also seems to lay more of an argument against having just one "TS" exam.  If I was hiring for an AS position, there's no doubt that someone with the current "TS" certification would get good consideration - but would I be unnecessarily excluding someone who had barely worked with IS or RS, which I don't care about?
Taking another tack on the same issue - what's the utility of the "ITP" certification when compared to the "TS" certification?  It seems like a question of perspective at the moment - implementation (TS) versus design (ITP).  But what's the progression path to the ITP certification?  How does one get there in practical employment?  By designing, planning, and working with all three products and making sure they interoperate smoothly.  That's different than the requirements of the TS level... but not that different.
So, Mr. Smarty Pants - What Would You Do?
It certainly seems to me to make an awful lot of sense to split the TS level certification into three.  The BI certification space in Microsoft would then look (and function) as follows.  There would be one exam per BI stack "product": IS, AS, and RS.  Completing one of those exams would earn a corresponding TS certification.  Completing all three - possibly in conjunction with completing a "design-level" exam - would earn the ITP certification.
What Are You Waiting For, Then?
Now, this obviously hasn't been done for some very real reasons.  The first and very obvious one that I can think of is cost vs. benefit.  If you take a look at the current numbers of Microsoft Certified people, it's quite clear that the BI certifications aren't all that "popular."  The space just hasn't matured all that much for Microsoft (...yet... hopefully).  As of writing this, there are 4,191 BI-related TSs, and 1,626 BI-related ITPs (05 and 08).  Compare that to 55,461 TSs and 12,501 ITPs for SQL Server non-BI roles.  All of those other SQL certifications are earned through single exams.  If the cost/benefit equation doesn't justify expanding (at least) the TS exam offering for SQL Server administration to different flavours - Installation/Configuration, Backup/Recovery, Database Design, Security, etc... - then how is adding exams and certifications to the BI stack justified?
Unfortunately I think we're kind of stuck with the current situation unless something changes on the numbers.  Either the numbers of people involved on using the BI stack, or Microsoft's costs of developing and administering the exam and certification process.  Given those constraints, it may be more worth our while to suggest amendments to the exam creation process, rather than the exam variety itself.  In doing a little research on this topic, I stumbled across an older blog post by a then-employee of Microsoft Learning, talking about "crowd-sourcing" certification exam questions.  I didn't read through everything there or follow every link, but I think the concept certainly bears investigation. But seeing as that post and discussion are years old... either that discussion's been had and died, or nobody was really listening during the "boom" years.  Personally, it would certainly make sense to me to have "the crowd" submit questions for "expert" review/rework - with that review and rework done behind closed doors so as not to leak exam contents.
You're Just A Ray Of Sunshine Today, Aren't You?
Better to be practical than overly optimistic, I think.  So don't hold your breath about having the Microsoft SQL BI stack certifications change anytime soon.