Is the winner of the Monte Carlo Tournament worthy of the title 'World Champion'?

David Rockwell has started an interesting and thought-provoking thread on bgonline about whether the winner of the Monte Carlo World Championship is worthy of the title 'World Champion'.

http://www.bgonline.org/forums/webbbs_config.pl?read=100565

I have a few thoughts on this:

1) Anyone can call themselves World Champion. The title only holds legitimacy in the eyes and opinions of others.

2) The Monte Carlo tournament has a history and prestige that no other tournament can match.

3) Everybody knows that the 'World Champion' in backgammon is highly unlikely to be the best player in the world.

4) There are many better ways of measuring backgammon skill than looking at tournament wins and certainly any one tournament win.

5) It is perfectly legitimate to attach labels to these different methods - 'Giant' or 'lowest error rate guy' or whatever.

6) The title 'World Champion' is for the winner of the Monte Carlo tournament by tradition. 

7) If you want a 'World's Best Player' award and title - fine. Come up with some criteria and go for it. But the World Champion, for me, will always be the winner of the World Championship!