Fair enough... but we can't exactly hold up microsoft as the paragon of good returns compared to it's cohorts (eg. AAPL, GOOG, etc).

Lol, oh god no. Especially when the NASDAQ is up almost 100% more than MSFT during that time period.

AAPL, GOOG, etc will reach their plateau soon enough. Apple already has flat or worse y/y earnings, Google is on steroids and is ruining their brand to artificially increase their earnings by penalizing sites (advertise or no traffic) and making it all ads in certain sectors. It will last maybe another or two. What then?

The point I was making: large tech companies have different rules, they behave more like Exxon and PG then a recently IPO-ed Google or Microsoft.