I read your post; I was just offering my own take on the "ratings myth."
There's really a number of factors that play into programming decisions, and you are correct that sometimes a programmers' preference will sway a decision one way or the other. It goes against the rules of good media, but it's only human nature.
My point is that AS probably believes pushing their original comedies more will help increase their profit. Except for maybe
Boondocks, the AS originals usually are fairly inexpensive to make and pull in decent ratings (maybe not great, but decent enough to bring in the ad dollars). This is probably why widely loathed shows with less than stellar production, like
Tom Goes to the Mayor and
12 Oz. Mouse, have gotten renewals.
An example from the flip-side... Comedy Central had an original, scripted sitcom a few years ago called
That's My Bush. It received a lot of hype and pulled in fairly good ratings, but was cancelled after only 1 season. The reason, from what I understand, is that it was a fairly expensive show to make and wasn't bringing in enough advertising dollars to justify keeping it on the air.
Hopefully this clarifies my previous post. And I am in total agreement with you that the importance of ratings in and of themselves is (for lack of a better term) overrated. Ratings are a factor, but the primary reason is that they (in theory) drive advertising, which boosts the bottom line.