NavList:

Peter:

You're both right and wrong (no personal insult intended).  There
certainly are many ways of doing sight reductions and even today people
are inventing new ways to do it.  

Ageton (HO 211) is a result of someone
skilled enough in math to say "there's a different/better way to reduce
sights" (where "better" in Ageton's case meant "simpler, more compact
tables even at the expense of more steps").  HO 229 resulted from
computers becoming commonplace enough in the 1950s to allow vastly
larger and more accurate sight reduction tables to be calculated.  And,
of course, the solar-powered $15 pocket scientific calculator has made
all tabular methods obsolete, at least in some people's opinion.

But the issue extends beyond that to things like training.  All of us
have learned to reduce sights either by reading a book or taking a
class.  That class or book trained us in one particular sight reduction
method.  Sociology tells us that people will not change a way of doing
things unless they perceive some significant reward as a result of
changing.  How many celestial navigators will want to learn a new method
just because it might be "better" than the method they originally
learned?  You might, I might, because we're curious about the whole art
of navigation.  But would the average offshore voyager?  Or will he/she
stick with sun sights and HO 249?

Hand in glove with training is availability.  If I'm preparing for an
offshore voyage and I want a set of celestial navigation tools, I'll
probably go to a large and expert supplier such as Celestaire or
Landfall.  What sight reduction method I use is going to be limited by
what's in their catalog.  Again, some experts may seek out new and
different ways of doing it, but for many it's "what's in the catalog."

The Complete On-Board Celestial Navigator. 

So, yes, you're right that there are many ways of reducing sights.  But
as many people in the past who perceived a "better way to do it" have
learned, what gets sold and used is determined much more by
non-technical factors such as commonplaceness than simply by technical
superiority.