Paul,
 
Valid, valid points.  I believe we continue to see man trying to fit
nature into nice square little boxes (in the case of Conus, boxes of
predetermined size).  We have to list, categorize, and prioritize
nature; and folks are constantly amazed when nature just doesn't quite
fit the box.  We really ought to be amazed when it does fit.  Is genus
size (the number of species in a single genus) some natural law?  Here
is a perfect case for building a box to go around the genus rather than
saying, "500 is just too large and should be split."
 
A lot of this work to determine genera based on morphology will be
outdated in a few years as DNA type studies and data become cheap,
accessible, and wide spread.  Recently someone discovered that the
turtle, long thought to be at the base of the reptile evolutionary
ladder (based on morphology) is actually (along with crocodiles)
somewhere near the top!!!  This is based on exhaustive DNA research and
as can be imagined, there is plenty of controversy.  Who knows what the
answer is?  Whatever it is, it will only be the answer until something
better comes along -- as it often does.  Many of you will remember
taking geology courses that talked about mountain ranges being formed by
almost spontaneous eruption of geosynclines.  Continental drift?  Plate
tectonics?  Both theories not to be discussed in class (1965).  Facts do
have a nasty habit of changing.
 
My point is that determining classification based only upon shell scars,
or radula, or gut geometry, or chemical analysis, or shell design, or
even a combination of these is probably doomed to be overturned by DNA
analysis.  The snail doesn't know or care -- it is all for our
convenience.  An attempt to apply some order to a chaotic world.
 
I just keep hoping for the study that pulls Morum out of Harpa and gives
it separate generic status.  And if they have to split up the cones,
here is praying that they stick to subgenera.
 
Another unbiased opinion from the man on the street.
 
Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA