i see where you are coming from Mr. Riggs, but i think the term 'vital points' is being stretched beyond it's limits by Dillman... if you mean vital point strikes like eyes, nose, throat, temple, armpit, short ribs, philtrum, solar plexus, gonads, etc thats certainly understandable... however, when Dillman starts talking about nerve clusters, meridians, and 'pushing the buttons' in certain orders, or touching, rubbing, tapping a spot on my forearm and causing unconsciousness... well i just have never seen any kind of medical evidence that this kind of thing exists... when you refer to the specific places where major nerves such as the vagas are located i can buy that, since a yokomen attack can be an atemi to this spot, or yonkyo attacking the nerve in the wrist, but this sequential activation of these points, that often have little or no real correspondence to actual physiology and no scientifically verifiable effectiveness is quite unbelievable... if it were possible wouldn't it happen at least occasionally that someone would say touch someone's arm and they would drop??? i have a very healthy amount of skepticism for these kind of highly exagerated claims... however i do believe in the less fantastic concept of vital points that i gave examples of before, but these are not 'secret' or miraculously/magically effective... i believe this is the more realistic idea that Doshu and others hold, not the Dim Mak secret ninja death touch bullshido that the likes of George Dillman purports...
Try this link and see what you think...
http://www.umam.org/Fun%20Stuff/dimmak.rm
ps do you have a link to your article in Black Belt???