Thanks for the feedback. I would guess you're probably right. My knowledge of data mining practices is actually pretty minimal.

The review, however, was written for a class, and so it is academically mandatory (i.e. "If you want an A you better...") to come up with problems with the original research and ways to improve. The professor seemed to like neural networks, so... (I think I inherited her "Just run everything through a neural network" mentality, but will definitely update my views based on your feedback. Thanks!)