Yes, I think there's a good deal of confusion about the appropriate axes - or at least talking past one another on these points.

If you take those data and throw them on a graph that looks more like Fred's, you get something that's downward sloping, but not nearly as smooth or severe as a power law curve: http://christinacacioppo.com/downloads/irrData.jpg

This isn't to say that one way of looking at this is better than another -- just that there seems to be two trains of thought right now.