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Dr D.  I’ve seen you make this point 4-5 times every year and I’m not one to disagree.  But there definitely is an advantage to having three pitches in a starting pitcher’s repertoire. This is especially so when a pitcher is facing an advanced offensive team i.e. the Yankees where they stick to a game plane which even if they are not totally successful in plating runs they are often still able to run up the pitch count to get the pitcher out of the game by the 6th inning or so.
But really how difficult is it for a pitcher to develop a change-up that they only need to be able throw 10-15 times per game.  We are not talking about a pitch that you expect the hitter to swing and miss, but one that will miss up his timing and be a nagging thought in the back of his head.  I’ve seen it written somewhere and it’s probably true that for every pitch they typically only have 2 things for which they are looking for and any more than that they do not have the time to process in info.
I’m here in Chicago so I did not see very many M’s games this year.  But I did see one game where Pineda was pitching and in about the 5th inning and a series hitters were able to continue to foul off pitches until they were able to put a good swing on the ball – he was not able to mess up their timing that if he did have that 3rd pitch perhaps he could have kept them a little more off balance.
It seems like there are two issues that you are hanging your hat on with this argument:
 By learning a third pitch, this will delay a pitcher’s development and the time spent on learning this pitch will not necessarily make him a more effective pitcher.
This third pitch (the change-up) may have a deleterious effect, in that there is a good possibility that it will cause him to be less effective overall by losing his feel for his other pitches.
I’m not totally sure if I agree with you.  But if you have time can you back up your argument/conclusion as to why it’s not wise to spend development time on a third pitch?
Case in point Doug Fister – yes he always had control/command of both his fastball (which before this year was on the velocity scale tick below avg he has brought the speed up some but really its still on the avg side of the house ) and has combined it with an excellent change.  But from my recollection his curve seemed to be only so so, this year he throws curve (his third weapon) all the time and it has become an out pitch.