Rating Agencies - only radical reform will do

An interesting interview with the CEO of Assured Guaranty (Bankstocks.com, 24 Nov 2008) reminded me that - despite all the hot air from regulators, politicians and industry practitioners - the problem of rating agencies and their role in the financial markets is as far from solution as ever.
The Number 1, 2 and 3 Priority must be to prohibit the issuers to pay the rating agencies. That will introduce a major reality check and clip their wings substantially - apart from helping to prevent more abuse.
90% of the ratings process can be based on numbers anyway and with the ease of access to number-crunching software most investors should be able to do most of the research themselves. After all, that is what they get the management fees for in the first place and any self-respecting investment institution has a credit research department in place already to do this task.
Credit research basically follows a 'margin of safety' approach. So calculating various key rations should be a great first step to filter out suitable investments. Subjective Analysis belongs more to the equity analysts and investors.
Most current reform proposals are just a waste of time, for example registering agencies in Europe - a favourite pastime for the Commissars in the EU and their hangers-on. It suits their Stalinist mindset.