+Bottom Line
+~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The notion of Throughput is easy to grasp, but it is harder to measure
+with any accuracy for non-deterministic systems.
+
+Even though the notion of critical rate is harder to grasp than the notion
+of throughput, it is easier to measure using probabilistic methods.
+
+In testing, the difference between througput measurements and critical
+rate measurements is usually small, see :ref:`soak vs ndr comparison`.
+
+In pactice, rules of thumb such as "send at max 95% of purported throughput"
+are common. The correct benchmarking analysis should ask "Which notion is
+95% of throughput an approximation to?" before attempting to answer
+"Is 95% of critical rate safe enough?".
+
+Algorithmic Analysis
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Motivation
+``````````
+
+While the estimation computation is based on hard probability science;
+the offered load selection part of PLRsearch logic is pure heuristics,
+motivated by what would a human do based on measurement and computation results.
+
+The quality of any heuristic is not affected by soundness of its motivation,
+just by its ability to achieve the intended goals.
+In case of offered load selection, the goal is to help the search to converge
+to the long duration estimates sooner.
+
+But even those long duration estimates could still be of poor quality.
+Even though the estimate computation is Bayesian (so it is the best it could be
+within the applied assumptions), it can still of poor quality when compared
+to what a human would estimate.
+
+One possible source of poor quality is the randomnes inherently present
+in Monte Carlo numeric integration, but that can be supressed
+by tweaking the time related input parameters.
+
+The most likely source of poor quality then are the assumptions.
+Most importantly, the number and the shape of fitting functions;
+but also others, such as trial order independence and duration independence.
+
+The result can have poor quality in basically two ways.
+One way is related to location. Both upper and lower bounds
+can be overestimates or underestimates, meaning the entire estimated interval
+between lower bound and upper bound lays above or below (respectively)
+of human-estimated interval.
+The other way is related to the estimation interval width.
+The interval can be too wide or too narrow, compared to human estimation.
+
+An estimate from a particular fitting function can be classified
+as an overestimate (or underestimate) just by looking at time evolution
+(without human examining measurement results). Overestimates
+decrease by time, underestimates increase by time (assuming
+the system performance stays constant).
+
+Quality of the width of the estimation interval needs human evaluation,
+and is unrelated to both rate of narrowing (both good and bad estimate intervals
+get narrower at approximately the same relative rate) and relatative width
+(depends heavily on the system being tested).
+
+Graphical Examples