James McGivern boils down herd behavior quite nicely this morning:

We did have a brief conversation on analyst firms and my perspective on them. I do believe that all vendors I interact with should pay their fees to the large firms regardless of the value they bring. Not paying causes problems for us. It is easier within a large enterprise to acquire new technology when an indepedent third-party says it is a leader than when there is only your own evidence to support. Likewise, I know that my peers at work are incredibly brilliant and can see solutions in the marketplace before others but the real key is that we need to also choose products that are sustainable and will be used by other large enterprises.

So let me get this straight: you think small firms should pay large analyst firms so that you don't need to do actual work? If that's not enterprisey, I don't know what is.