I see that while I was typing my deeply thought through analysis, the Mudcat wags were having their irrepressible way with this thread.
That's why I love the 'Cat -- you never know what you're going to see next!

I did have one more serious thing to add.
Lately I've been making a renewed effort to improve my sight reading (again) and I had an epiphany. (Actually it was a combination of something I read and a questionable pepperoni pizza.)

The thing is, stop trying to be that pizza-eating player piano, scanning the dots and trying to whack the right keys at the right time (or whatever your instrument requires). You don't do that when you read words aloud -- you scan ahead a bit at a time and mentally digest them before you speak them.
Likewise, I am discovering that if I read for comprehension, a small unit at a time, then I *understand* the music that is upcoming and can bring all those other skills I talked about to bear on producing it. I haven't mastered this, far from it, but so far it seems to be a better approach than the brute force method I've always tried to use.

Cheers
-Glenn