David (response),

<< Ralph (acknowledgement)

 Thank you for the opinions (appreciation).
 It would be useful to have other similar reactions.
 You are of course most welcome. We will have to take your word for it that
similar reactions would be useful to have.
 I ask these questions, not because I don't know which
 way to go, but as part of trying to understand how
 other people look at problems such as this.
Uhhhh, OK.
 One of the challenges that I have set myself for the
 next few years is to try to develop the ability to
 think through other ways of seeing issues in
 conservation or repair of building fabric.
 Sounds like a noble goal for one and all.  I (and I suspect our fellow
Pinheads who walk around right-side-up) am interested to learn your ways of
seeing these things, since you seem to be a pretty sharp cookie, despite the
geographical challenges to which you are subject.
 With regard to your response, if I were to say, and I
 stress the if, that the water ingress was relatively
 minor, happened only during major storms, and the
 damage caused was to plaster which was not all
 original, paintwork which had been repainted more
 times than you've had hot dinners, and was back of
 house anyway, would you change your opinion that the
 leaking was bad?
  >>
If it's a pain in the ass, resulting in more work to repeatedly correct the
damage than to fix the source of penetration, why not fix the problem?  Why
are these aluminum storm windows of such historic significance?
If your  problem was having found an old  and disfiguring (but not original)
3/8" diameter hole at eye level in a  wooden door in an old theater, before
we tell you to put in a dutchman and paint out the hole, it would be most
helpful to know that the theater was Ford's Theater, and the hole was in the
door leading to the presidential box, and that the hole was drilled on the
afternoon of April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth.  I would propose that that
particular hole has historic significance, and should not be patched.
But what's so important about your aluminum storm windows?

Ralph