:( I thought that was a succint evaluation....

There are plenty of bad SEO firms out there who have no clue about what they are doing (and often do more harm than good to a site). Also SEO is seen as a fix-all solution - which it really isn't.

But SEO practices are an essential part of any website design, refresh or update.

At the end of the day it's just a buzzword that creates a market for selling their knowledge (knowt wrong with that of course!)