Rick:
I totally agree with your comments. 
One thing of note is that I believe Ikenberry's research covered only two-for-one stock splits and as shown, these are on balance a slight positive for share price performance post-split. However I have seen research and personally witnessed significant underperformance following stock splits of three-for-one, four-for-one or greater. These greater than two-for-one splits have indeed been rare of late but they can and have become almost the norm in overheated markets as we saw in the latter half of the 1990s. 
If in the future you see any sector of the market, whether it be tech, gold or some other "must own" investment where share prices have had large gains and multiple companies within that specific area announce stock splits of three-for-one or greater, "buyer beware."
What I've described is certainly not what this column is about. I'm simply saying that not all stock splits are equal and neither is performance following them.  
SFI