American Heritage Overrated/Underrated: 100 Experts Topple the Icons and Champion the Slighted!/
Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2001

Excerpts from essays by Phil Patton
Most Overrated: Atomic Power
Too horrible to use except in the most extreme case, it remained a weapon of last and fatal resort but nonetheless distorted the application of conventional power.
Most Underrated: Telegraph
Save for systems of signal towers with flags or smoke, the telegraph marked the first time that communication was separated from transportation, that messages could move faster than the human body.
Most Overrated: Diners
In fact, many were ptomaine palaces whose meals drove Americans to the dependability of standardized national fast-food chains.