Jimbo,
Why the method is bunk even W/ PTC's is because you yeild the quaternary ammonium salt of said product. Once that happens "a done bun can't be undone". Every attempt made by any of my sources (from Shulgin to Calamus and the rest of the B's)to try to decompose this into the desired active "goodies" have either failed or resulted in piss poor yeilds not even worth bothering to mention. From calculated bond enthalpy you can tell that the process is irreversable do to loss of Gibbs free energy. Entropy is such a bitch!
Yours in science
Calamus