Wow - it's taken me awhile to read through this very interesting thread! I'll pipe in to say that some of the things I've appreciated about Ruf is that she does market herself. She was quoted in an article when my DS was 3, describing preschool behaviors in gifted kids, and two people saved the article for us because they thought of our DS. We then decided to get her book. We are one of the families with the kid who fits into her profiles. At the time I read the book, I knew nothing of levels of giftedness, so if that theory had been around since 1942, it was news to me and a revelation. I read through the stories and thought, "That's my DS!" and even "Hey, that's me!" Even though I was in some gifted pullouts in grade school, I never realized how different I was until I read Ruf's book. I then tried to find every book imaginable on gifted education, and some of the books were helpful, some were not. There are not a whole lot of books out there on giftedness, and even less on HG+, so I think it's positive when more information is getting out there.
I have not yet looked at the new website, so I cannot comment on that, but I bet before I knew very much about my son's giftedness, I would have paid the $45. Heck, I think I paid $70 for Miraca Gross's book! But I wonder if the service will discredit her individual services, as someone else mentioned here. My DS was assessed by her, and we were given an incredibly detailed write-up and had an extremely informative meeting after the assessment. Her assessment has been dead-on so far.
It sounds like a few disclaimers on the website service would be appropriate, such as the limitations of such a service in assessing 2e kids or kids who are not globally gifted.
