Amen to that!
It would be one thing if we had reason to suppose that the valuations produced by available mark-to-model methodologies was meaningful for many of these financial instruments, or if there was some sort of effective mechanism - or even the near-term prospect of same - in place to ensure that an attempt was at least being made to make them as meaningful as possible.
Instead what we've got is regulatory churn for short-term political gain absent any such controls on its abuseand little public discussion of the cost in terms of inventor and central-bank confidence in already highly suspect valuations.
---------
Mark-to-market is not required by Sarbanes-Oxley, and there are existent mechanisms to deal with problem of "temporarily impaired" assets. FASB 157 allows non-level 1 classified of assets in a disorderly market and allows regulated capital valuations to be molded. If someone tries to tell you differently refer them to the 9/30/08 SEC/FASB statement on this question:
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-234.htm
Where Sarbanes-Oxley coms into this that banks - often on the advice of their auditors - elected to use market valuations because they felt if gave executives protection against accusations of having made material misstatements on valuation issues.