Much of this makes good sense, but before I make further comment I should formally state that the procedure and blog we're talking about is mine. I say that only so as not to mislead or misrepresent my interest in pursuing questions (you may, perhaps, feel that you don't want to continue this in light of that info).. I know some on here already know the association between 'softwater' and Applehelpwriter, and the only reason I wasn't more explicit earlier is because I didn't want to seem to be hijacking this thread in order to drive traffic to my website (which is against the ToU in any case). I'm only interested in getting the procedure right.
Likewise, I would not be surprised or particularly upset if some of our more "vigilant about the ToU" members feel the need to report this discussion as off-topic (which it clearly now is) and have it stopped. In the meantime, however, I'd like to make a few comments, as long as they last:
1. Thanks for the tip about running DU first. That hadn't occurred to me, but makes good sense.
2. In response to a question on my site in the comments a few days ago, I suggested that it would be wise to run this procedure from safe mode first, but I hadn't taken the further step of incorporating that into the main post. My feeling was that it wasn't necessary, and I've had quite a few 'inexperienced' users have trouble with implementing safe mode, sometimes thinking they were in it when they weren't, and sometimes being in it and (despite the warnings to the contrary) thinking their computer was really hosed. For that reason, I've been reluctant to write the procedure starting from a safe boot if it isn't necessary. I may reconsider that in light of your comments, but I need to look into it a bit further.
3. I don't believe the removal of any TM files in the procedure is detrimental as (I think) you suggest since that removal is done through the 'star wars' interface and is specific to MK files. I can't see how that could possibly be harmful.
4. I categorically do not suggest blanket wiping any clones as you seem to imply above. My procedure always leaves a backup in place. Either you have a clone with archives, in which case you boot into that and uninstall MK from it first (leaving your internal disk untouched and acting as your backup till you've verified that the uninstall on the clone worked and rebooted safely), or you have an unarchived clone, in which case you unplug (and therefore preserve it) before uninstalling MK on your internal disk. Only once your internal HD is rebooted and seen to be OK do I suggest you then make a new clone, wiping out the old one. That's effectively what you're doing everytime you clone your system anyway (when you clone without archiving).
5. I understand the argument with BOMs and other non-exectuables, (which is why I said it was 'arguable' earlier), but I'm unconvinced that there is any reason to leave them. I know you could argue that there is no reason to remove them, and we could go round that for hours. My feeling is that I don't want people following my procedure and then later worrying 'Hey, I found something from MK on my disk he didn't tell me about'. Might as well clear the lot.
6. As I understand it, 'Secure Empty Trash' is, at least in Snow Leopard, a 7-pass overwrite, which is the maximum available in Lion's DU (SL allows a 35-pass overwrite in DU), so it isn't "a kind" of secure erase, it is a secure erase. I appreciate your comments on using Verify and Repair permissions first, which I hadn't thought of and which I'll need to look into further, but on the face of it that sounds very sensible.
Even so, I still disagree with you about whether secure erase should be performed or not. If I follow the suggestion to do verify and repair first, I can't see any adverse affects. I can, however, see problems with not securely erasing MK. I've outlined some above, and I think they still hold. I have one or two others suspicions, but I need to find out more about the technical side both by testing what MK actually does write to disk, and whether there are possibilites of a trojan or some other script being able to recover data from the disk remotely (I freely admit that this is way out of my depth of current understanding, but I am actively engaged in learning more).
Thanks for your comments. They're very helpful to me (and will be to others). I have had lots of positive responses to the procedure and none of any body having any problems from doing either the secrue erase of any other part of it. I happily admit, though, that "so far so good" is not a reliable indicator of what tomorrow may hold.
Finally, apologies to both the OP and everyone else uninterested in this diversion. It will be of benefit to others, just probably not to those following the OP and thread title.