I think the research in the field is fairly limited - which might make the book sound limited, but I didn't really see any picking of cherries, rather than very

I think the research in the field is fairly limited - which might make the book sound limited, but I didn't really see any picking of cherries, rather than very few cherries to pick from :). Also West makes it pretty clear what he thinks of a bare exponential & corollary phase transition. The scaling power-law relationship however does not imply any sort of bare exponential growth.