MJ - but what if someone was already conducting molecular research into mushrooms, not using psilocybes but some other set of mushroom species as their study group? Then, if they had a passionate interest in understanding the metapopulation and evolutionary genetics of P. cyanescens, it would be a simple case of them including P. cyanescens specimens in amongst the many hundreds of routine DNA sequencing batches they'd be running anyway, and spending a few weekends sorting this data out. Mating experiments etc. can be done at home.
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Mr Mushrooms & MJ - notice I said "nasty molecular taxonomists" - so I think we share the same general stance about the naming of mushroom species here. I think that Vilgalys so far has only got round to informally designating the psychoactive clade 'Psychedelia' and has not published a formal taxonomic revision. If he does, everyone can ignore him like most are ignoring his splitting of Coprinus into four genera, or someone could propose a formal nomen conservandum or whatever.
But, Mr Mushrooms, "phuck phylogeny" entirely???
I'd really like to convince you that phylogenetic techniques have uses above and beyond the rather bland business of pure classification. Leaving these annoying nomenclatural issues aside, we find that phylogenies allow us to address all kinds of evolutionary questions that we'd be simply unable to tackle if only morphological evidence was considered.
Do you not find it interesting that the mushroom species long since grouped under one genus name, Psilocybe, are strongly indicated - by multiple unlinked gene regions not involved with psilocybin production - to cluster into two independent groups, one psychoactive and one inactive, with many morphological features now reinforcing the separation of these lineages in hindsight?
Then look at the topology of these phylogenies. Start mapping on microscopic, ecological, geographical, and biochemical characters. Suddenly we can start to find out about character correlations and correlates of diversification. How many times have psilocybe lineages invaded wood substrates? What traits might have promoted higher rates of speciation? To what extent are levels of psilocybin production strongly contrained or plastic amongst sister species and sister clades? What micro- and macroscopic features are the most reliable indicators of evolutionary relationship? What are the most basal psilocybin-producing species and what primitive features do they share with other dark-spored groups that may have evolved psilocybin production?
As more species and more gene regions are sequenced, our confidence in retrieving sound answers to these questions can only improve.
Surely these issues are a lot more interesting than nomenclature, and it is perhaps unfortunate that most phylogenetic work on mushrooms seems only to generate phylogenies for the sake of classification. So, you may well decide to not use phylogenetic criteria in naming mushroom species, and I would sometimes support you there, depending on each individual case. But to dispense with phlyogeny as a source of evidence for our enquiries into mushroom evolution would be a great shame.
I can even think of cases where the use of molecular phylogenies for fungal classification has been very useful. The taxonomy of anamorphic fungi lacking a sexual stage was a mess until recent times, because sexual structures have been the source of almost all grouping characters. Now that we may determine these fungi's closest sexual relatives using molecular phylogenies, researchers developing treatments for diseases caused by these fungi have a clear advantage - and this type of head start bestowed by phlyogenetic information applies to many groups of organisms.
Mr Mushrooms, you seem to imply that molecular phylogenetic techniques are totally without merit, even in matters unrelated to classification. I'd be interested to hear your justification of this stance?
My example of modern human origins was a perhaps a poor choice - there are many more clear-cut cases of powerful phylogenetic accuracy.
Phylogenetic techniques provide powerful tools currently residing at the heart of diverse biological fields, for example in medical virology and bacteriology, and of course in many areas of evolutionary ecology.
To take one more or less random example, there was a case where the original home locality of an invading beetle pest of south american and african crops was unknown. Phylogenetic analysis of numerous representative beetle samples clearly revealed that (i) this beetle 'species' actually consisted of two cryptic species and (ii) the basal lineages of both of these cryptic species was represented by specimens from a region of Amazonian forest - subsequent visits to this forest located natural enemies of the beetles (parasitoid wasps) which were then successfully used in treating the pests worldwide.
Then of course there are the numerous 'simulation' studies, where organisms such as viruses have been bred over thousands of generations, and regularly isolated according to different selection pressures. A 'blind' phylogenetic analysis of viral DNA following these many years of breeding recovered the exact pattern of isolation and strain divergence that had been experimentally imposed.
So, given, as I have said before, that the relatively simple cellular structure of mushrooms serves poorly to record their evolutionary history, and that cases of convergent, parallel, and revergent evolution are rife amonst mushroom lineages, an argument against molecular phylogenies as being our most powerful and reliable tool yet for detecting mushroom relationships should rely on something more concrete than personal disbelief and resentment about name-changing.
If you're really portraying these techniques as being generally without merit, on a logical rather than a personal basis, you have an absolutely vast body of supportive evidence and theoretical framework to overturn. I've done my darndest to convince you of that here, I hope you appreciate my effort if nothing else 
(and if you only meant to criticize the sometimes endless and pointless re-naming that goes on in the wake of phylogenetic studies, and not the efficacy of phylogenies themselves, then sorry to have rambled on for ages about this. And thanks for calling me 'brilliant'  )
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