Stephen Gould, avid evolutionist that he was, was often “criticized” for verbalizing his concerns over the weakness of the fossil record. He died fairly recently. Are his words more powerful because he live more recently even though he is expressing the same think as others (and you and I both know there are others, now and all through Darwinian evolution). Fact is Darwin himself was quite worried about the paucity of fossil evidence. 150+ years and 200+ million fossils later, the paucity remains.