That just sounds like a terrible functional spec. If it's a core part of the behavior that some mocked object is called 11 times then so be it, and so mock it.

That just sounds like a terrible functional spec. If it's a core part of the behavior that some mocked object is called 11 times then so be it, and so mock it. You're not introducing brittleness via your tests—you're introducing it because your functional spec is highly complex.