Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff

Yes, and in all your examples, the torque recommendation was for the clamp, not the seatpost. You used an aluminum Thomson and the clamp broke. No surprise. Now what if your seatpost had been carbon fiber? Would your clamp know you changed posts and rewrite the max torque spec?

The bit about the seat clamp not touching the seatpost is just standard practice and has nothing to do with the discussion about tightening. The clamp should never touch the seatpost. Ever.

A carbon frame around an aluminum seatpost will never be cracked due to merely overtightening the seatpost clamp. Same way you won't be able to crush a cardboard tube if you filled the inside with cement. Think about it. But again, we are talking about seatposts, not frames. Also, nothing you said contradicted my point that any torque specification printed on a clamp is a torque specification for the clamp, not the seatpost.