Is Penkse Team Loose in Turn 3?

So 1/2 way into the season with Hornish dabbling around the anti-illustrious 35th spot in owners points I had to wonder if Kurt Busch giving up his car points to Hornish hurt the No. 2 team overall? Being as how they seemed to stall this year in performance.

My thought is that yes, the points swap just might have done something to them. They have lousy garage spots, and though it must be nice to be trusted enough to have your points pulled from you because your car owner knows you can perform, what a let down it must be to have all your hard work go to someone who is being outperformed by Michael Waltrip.

I then posed this question to my cohorts in the "Loose In Turn 3" gang, Tim Zaegel and Charlie Turner:

Tim (Do You NASCAR?): To an extent, I can agree. You bring up an excellent point in terms of losing the garage spots and things of that nature, but that's still no excuse for the team running as lousy as they have all season long. They've got one of the best Crew Chiefs in the business and Kurt's a former Cup Series champion ... there's just no excuse.

Charlie (On Pit Row): Nope. Would the Busch/Hornish points swap explain Newmans miserable season since Daytona? Kurt didn't miss any races because of the swap. Allowing Hornish to make the races gave Penske three cars in every race. The data they were able to gather should have helped the team. Something else is missing there.

~

In our usual state of passing questions back and forth, Tim asks:
With the recent folding of Chip Ganassi's #40 operation due to lack of sponsorship, is this a trend we can continue to expect?

And with Mark Martin Looking to run full time in Hendrick Motorsports next year, Charlie wonders out loud
What will become of Dale Earnhardt Inc.