Chris; and those interested..
.this may have been repeated...but when we did the 5th ave presby. church.(
5th &55.NYC...we completely retooled the 355 foot Bellville brownstone church
;
I had 15 stone masons ;5 of them carvers;
 we replaced all the missing historic detail that was lost;mostly with
dutchmen; slightly sunken or mishapen flat work was patched and retooled;
 all architectual weathering elements were consolidated;
all in all  we proably reduced the entire masonry of the church by 1/2
inch...was it the correct thing to do?
 removal of failing masonry in public no mater at what height (or how
historic ) is the correct thing to do . Repacing of failed weathering
elements is the correct thing to do.. Exceptions are made to archeological
projects
Pay attention this summer to Cooper Union ; Guild member Nick Micros(hands on
 stone mason /consultant) and preservation consultant (Boston ?)Ivan Meyer
are about to do exactly the same thing to this historic brownstone ediface; a
little ambitious perhaps for the amount of deep dutchmen called for when
proably more patching would suffice; and mineralized coatings to stabilize
peeling verneers at lower elevations..
.lastly on a historical note...the masons and quarrymen who built the
brownstones "knew" the stone would have problems in 100 yrs; they "Knew"
that for mass production the bedding planes might be wrong; the setter would
get face stone with the planes verticle instead of horizontal;
but "went ahead anyway unknown to the client; because the demand was so high
and the problem would not surface for 100 yrs...same ka-ka diffrent day..
.now its the homeowner that needs to stabilized a facade that has been
wrongly built and later  patched ;pointed, waterproofed ,and painted , and
calked ; smear stuccoed  then painted again to trap the water and the salts
and repeat the cycle again.....an old mason told me it was a gift from the
old timers because like all economic cycles they knew we might need the
work...  ..all the best Michael  Stone Guild