"I need to give Dan Quayle a call."

No you don't. We can mislead, misinform, and otherwise confuse things just fine all by ourselves!

I tend to agree with the general consensus - most of the discussions of "layering" I read refer to using several thinner layers with the goal of adding and subtracting as needed to regulate temperature. I think, back before we had the technical garments we have now, and were using some cotton in the mix, it was probably both necessary and important to be adding and subtracting layers to avoid sweating (and wetting out your cotton and wool, both of which took forever to dry around here.)

However, with the advent of all the miracle wicking fabrics we have today, the problem became simpler. The newer synthetics and merino wool (and wool blends) seem, to me at least, to be effective at regulating temperature over a wider temperature range: a midweight half-zip turtleneck merino wool top now covers the whole range that I used two light wool sweaters (one with and one without a turtleneck, neither zippered) to deal with before. So, we're not needing as many spare pieces, nor are we adding and removing as often as we used to. (At least, that's been my experience.) Different tools, same end result.