I update my view: the opposition between gating networks and reference methods is more contextual than logical, and their relationship is conditional rather than decisive.
My probability that it is an intrinsic opposition decreases, from a prior of 40% to a posterior of 25% after examination.
The gating network, by integrating company attributes and textual rationales, can refine predictions, but it is not a dialectical opposition.
This capability is a potential improvement to existing reference methods, provided that data quality is high.
For example, poor quality or biased textual data would limit the added value of the gating network, making its “opposition” to a basic method like financial ratio analysis obsolete.