Quick followup…
There was an SEO speaker at CAP: Scottie Claiborne from Right Click Web Consulting. Here is her bio. Apparently she has a lot of credibility and she is clearly quite bright.
In any case, I had just finished SEO Book when I saw her speak, and I have to say that I felt like already knew pretty much everything she had to say from reading Aaron Wall’s book – and the things she was saying totally squared with what Aaron says, which I found to be reassuring.