TomD
""For those that consider the Kato-Kawai video common knowledge let us review.""

""The video shows(1)how setting the cap iron too far back (in this case infinity) results in grain tear.""

No, it shows that the beaker can control tear. Setting a breaker back or not using one at all does not necessarily mean there is tear. In a particular grain situation it will, but it is not universal. So the real lesson is that breakers can limit tear, and this is widely known.

Page 85 of Odate's book:

"The Chipbreaker, or second blade, HELPS REDUCE TEAR-OUT,..."

He goes on to say a lot about single blades, double blades, and that some of the influence was from the west, which seems to suggest someone in the west knew a thing or two about tear-out and informed the Japanese, around 1900.

He further says:

"For the cleanest surface (with a CB), the chipbreaker should be as close as possible to the edge."

So are we done here? This book was published 28 years ago by Taunton.

" Then it shows that setting it too close (2), and a quantitative value is provided, results in scrunched shavings."

This could happen several times a day, if doing any real hand tool work, it is like asking for a reference on edges getting dull. To make it uber obvious, often the accordianed shaving is actually beneath the breaker.

To save time I went to the internet where I immediately found:

"You can also tell how you're doing based on how the the shavings are coming out. If the chip breakers too far forward a lot of times they'll come out and almost like accordion"

This is some kind of a transcript from a video so it is rough. And it is Dec 11, 2011, so is that post your video.

http://www.woodmagazine.com/videos/v/55621586/tuning-a-hand-plane.htm

Yeah here:

http://www.woodtalkonline.com/topic/4782-rabbet-plane-question/

In this post he mentions the phenom,

Here is one from 97 he mentions both one and two:

http://swingleydev.com/archive/get.php?message_id=30446&submit_thread=1

"" Then(3) a range for effective cap iron effect is shown, ""

This is just the space between the limits for their particular case. Too close it crumples too far it doesn't function.

""with distance values provided. In the 15 minutes it takes to view these experiments one is taught that the cap iron alone can prevent tear-out""

Proven not to be new.

""and, we are taught what it looks like when the cap iron is too close as well as an approximate range where success is to be found.""

Right, not new.

""The answers to these challenges will reveal whether those of us that were clueless are lazy students or whether there is a teacher shortage.""

Could be, the other possibility is some have not done basic hands on investigation, hand planing, or plane building themselves.