I don't know -- I've read my fair share of "Oh my gorgeous red curls, I hate them so!" (subtext: please tell me they're gorgeous.) "Oh, these giant bazooms? You can have them!" (subtext: now you will describe to me how luscious they are.)

I would argue, overall, that Mary Sueism isn't a list of traits of the offeding character, but an overall attitude, of atuhor, towards both character and context. The list of traits are warning signs, the way that blue fingernails may signal heart failure, but the thing that really fries my gizzard is the attitude.

Which is why, at the end of the first Lymond novel, it wasn't Lymond's ass into which I desired to insert my foot; it was Dunnett's.