Actually Marshall, I agree with you whole heartedly. I was quite deliberate in my asking of this question to not state up front which of the implementations I prefer, so that the responses I got would not be influenced by my opinion. It has been my experience that when asking this type of question, the best way to get clear unbiased responses is to remove as much of my subjective position from the description as possible...

That having been said, at this point it is quite clear from the responses in this thread, that my preference for multiple returns is the more popular opinion. That may not do me any good in my disagreement with my colleague, but it does hold some level of personal satisfaction.