very interesting data, thank you for posting the links.
once again i must ask how accurate this data can actually be, as it appears to be drawing from the experiences of fourty individuals. perhaps one confounding variable would be as follows - respondents were individuals who had access to a large information pool, ie. the internet. therefore we can logically deduce that they know more about proper mandarin care than individuals who do not have this resource. if i wanted to be nitpicky, i would say that this survey is invalid, as it does not reflect the entire gamut of individuals who keep mandarins.
that said, i have certainly learnt a lot throughout the course of this discussion. i did some searching on RC (what i understand to be the largest saltwater aquarist community), and discovered that many individuals have successfully kept a mandarin in a ~40 tank. therefore i feel better about the chances of the mandarin which was the topic of this entire thread.
i still feel that it is essential to educate oneself on potential livestock before making the purchase.
thanks to the vast majority of you for keeping this at least partly sane, and for keeping me on my toes, and coming back to this thread every few minutes to see the latest response (read: attack).
edit - apparently the second survey included over three hundred individuals. therefore my first argument above may not be as strong as i believed.