It doesn't make sense to arbitrarily decide that, if there are two proposals, the answer is to do a little of both. In financial markets, that's often the worst possible course of action. With S&Ls in the early 80's, for example, Congress could have allowed them to fail, or nationalized them. Instead, Congress gave them extra deposit insurance and deregulated their lending -- which caused them to make lots of stupid loans, backed by government insurance. Similarly, California half-deregulated their energy market, which ended up bankrupting their power companies and costing their consumers extra.

The middle and compromise are not in and by themselves the right answer.

Moderation is often a far superior strategy then extremism, but a little of both is not a superior answer to the question: Is this circuit on or off?

The "middle is always right" attitude reminds me of the US media, which will often juxtapose facts and spin, then idly stand by, pointing out that both "extreme" positions are equally valid.

One analysis I've heard is that the current problem is due to compromising between strict regulation and strict deregulation.