Thank you for finding time to submit a response.

1) Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough – I also think that speed difference is not considerable in most cases, but it exists. Putting a code at the bottom of the page makes things better but then you risk losing some page hits.

2) It’s still around and I expect it will be for at least some time, if not forever (whatever that means). Both methods have pros and cons, and I just don’t like to see that log analysis is ignored. GA is great for marketing purposes (tracking conversions, segmenting, more detailed client data), but technical analysis is impossible without server logs. And if log analyzer does a decent job in the marketing area, even better.

3) I’m glad to hear that, and, to be honest, I’m not surprised. Personally, I’m not concerned about employees, but I know a guy who never buys at Amazon because of similar issue.

Anyway, your financial system analogy is very interesting, and you are probably right. Still, we should be careful – leaving our money (information) in the wrong hands could cause troubles. I hope that Google will prove trustworthy in the future.

1) Latency – “your site will be slower” … placing the snippet at the base of the page mitigates this issue considerably. In the vast majority of cases, any difference in speed is not noticeable.
2) Server logs – It’s true this method is still around. In fact, Google still offers Urchin, a log-file analyzer, to customers who would like to keep their data onsite. In general though, server logs have many many problems of their own, which is why the method is on the decline. You’re right that these tools don’t face the same specific limitations, but they are still limited.
3) Every Google employee absolutely does not have access to your data. There are very strict guidelines around this. In general on this issue, I think the financial system (for all its failings) is a good analogy. Back in the day people kept their money under the mattress until we developed a financial system that gave them greater convenience and flexibility in exchange for a certain level of trust. The same evolution is happening now with information.