Rap bolting at the Pinnacles NM

Question
Dear Robert,
I also enjoy first ascents at the Pinns and like you, also adhere to the strictest ground up ethics in my endevors.  Though, since I am climbing a smidgen harder than you, these days, I am using hooks to place some bolts.  I of course pull the rope between attempts. In the last couple of years I have noticed that a lot of routes are going up in a top-down style.  This seems to be particularly prevelent on the West Side.  Some of these routes are so loose and poorly bolted as to make them dangerous for the less experianced user.  To be honest I will have to admit that this bugs me to no end.  My question's are one, can you see anyway to discourage this practice and two, as an old-timer how do you feel about this practice.  I raelize that these are both loaded questions and apoligize for putting you on the spot, so to speak, but I do feel that these questions need to be put in the spotlight.  I hope that I get to meet you someday!
Yours truely,
Steven Paul Dalleske

Answer
Dear Steven,

  I think rap-bolting is a dead-end in our sport, especially at Pinnacles.  The only excuse for rap-bolting a route is pursuit of extreme difficulty.  That can usually be done via bouldering or a top rope without  forcing in an artificial line of bolts. Pinnacles rock, as you pointed out, can be most dangerous if a route has not been worked from the ground up.  Also, though I may be too optimistic in thinking this, there seem few places left where  rock quality and difficulty combine to allow truly cutting edge climbing.  
  The great enjoyment I've experienced while putting up a route comes from the craftsmanship and the self-discipline such climbing entails.  The mind and the imagination must go before the body.  There is great joy and creativity in that.  I don't think it happens for rap-bolters.  
  Recognizing the style (prominently so) of an ascent in the guidebook will help control the kinds of new routes which are established.  Ongoing discussion in the various venues available to us (FOP, for instance) will help, too.  I am not a top-end climber, but I have run into very few rap-bolted routes at Pinnacles that are worth anybody's time.  Have you found any good enough to justify the technique?
  Thanks for writing.  Perhaps we'll run into each other in the parking lot.

Bob Walton