"The only problem is that "a great CEO" doesn't come cheap."

Not to point out the obvious, but neither do "crappy" ones. And since you brought it up, board of director members of poor quality are quite expensive as well as we've learned the painful lesson with PTSC.

Chalk me up in the court of willing to "try out" some OTHER people. Other Fortune 500 companies' directors don't make much more than ours, and since we're paying it to date, apparently we CAN afford it. So I'd say the $130K or so that we're paying some of our current BOD members should be taken from them and pooled to hire a better CEO, OR, it should be taken from them and paid to replacement directors. There are plenty of other bigger more profitable companies who pay less for their directors while getting much better results. So while you continue to defend and come up with excuses for why "we're stuck" with what we have, why don't you lead the charge for change?!