A tool is only as good as the person who uses it.

There's a lot of talk about the use of rules in BizTalk and other products and frankly a lot of "loose talk" about how these kinds of embedded engines replace stand-alone business rules engines or business rules management systems. They don't. For lots on why (cross-platform support, business user rule manaagement, scalability for hard probems) and on why Microsoft, for instance, is partnering with Fair Isaac, check out my blog for more - http://edmblog.fairisaac.com/weblog/net/index.html for instance.

Embedding rules in a process environment like Microsoft has done is great but only a start.

I agree with James Taylor, as it happens - but there is still a risk that people buying Business Rules embedded in a process server won't realise what they're missing until it's too late.

I think Rules are too important/powerful to be misused for long - but perhaps the risk is that a few incomplete but well-publicised implementations, stretched beyond what they're suited for, may bring the whole concept of Rule Processing into disrepute...