Thanks, everyone. The technical feedback is all very useful, and I see much more clearly now.

The other thing I've learned here is that all the "really obvious" references I was making aren't actually all that obvious, and I was probably going too niche anyways.

The Black Swan is deliberately ugly and intended to look a little malevolent, since it's the statistically unlikely event that financial people are so interested in these last few years (google "black swan theory"). This apparently is NOT comprehensible in the general audience, which is a great piece of information.

The sandwich was a simple play on "eating your words" really. The concept was that it would suit to illustrate anything about bad contracts, really. Apparently that didn't really fly all that well either, at least some people found it confusing.

I was trying to follow their advice to "think conceptual" but I think I pushed it too far and wound up thinking "think niche, think obscure" which isn't really the right thing at all!

Thanks again, everyone.

Ahhh, thanks I was wondering!