yep, I saw these and some are quite good. I especially found Gaiman's comments helpful.

The two writers e-mail lists I'm on both discussed these and the most controversy was over whether it's wrong to use synonyms for "he said". One of the authors in the article comes down heavily on using them but I'm of the opposite school. I think "he said" is repetetive and intrusive if it's used every other sentence. You can get away with it for two people chatting at a kitchen table. It starts to get old and drab when you have twenty-three people battling a super-villain.

The again, I'm the only person who's used the phrase "he opined" in the last century.