That analysis from manchuriancandidate2004 is very interesting. Otherwise the whole forged document caper seems stupid--why take such risks over a story that most of the country doesn't care about (the details of Bush's National Guard service)? Then again, the Nixon people made the same mistake--sending wiretappers in to bug the DNC when Nixon had the election in the bag already (given that McGovern would be the Democratic nominee).
The situations are similar in that the risks greatly outweigh any potential gain (since the Kerry campaign pre-forgeries did not have the upper hand the way the Nixon campaign did).