My opinion? Thanks for the compliment.
I have a very different approach towards this issue and many others. I often try to view psak halachah from a historical or sociological point of view (by the way, I am neither a historian nor a sociologist by profession). To me it is obvious that most piskei halachah are decided by the posek by intuition, experience and necessity. The real posek cuts through immediately to the core of the issue and decides intuitively. The rest of the tshuva is culling sources to support his decision and refute the opposing views.In most cases, the posek could have easily reversed his psak and still find halachic justification. This is most apparent with the question of agunos, where the need for a heter is most pressing. There are many other examples of course.
I greatly appreciate the shakla v’tarya here regarding the validity of sfek sfeika, and the discussion contributes much to l’hagdil torah. It is relevant to psak when an individual is faced with a decision as to whether a given product may be eaten at a given meal. However, when setting public halachic policy, that is, creating a “chodosh-free” food company, or setting up guidelines for large institutions (schools, yeshivas, kosher supermarket chains, even the OU), the issue of sfek sfeka becomes irrelevant. The psak will be given depending on public need or facts on the public ground. This is what the Bach did. If current day poskim think it’s too diffcult to keep yoshon, they will point to the Bach, and that’s fine. The Bach saw a situation where almost all ate chodosh and he set out purposefully to justify it. He was so successful that his heter was accepted for many generations. Now that we can verify (can we?) where our produce comes from and when, I think that a yoshon vadai enterprise should be supported. This is nothing new. Much lighter issues like cholov stam, non-glatt meat and imperfect hadassim have morphed into full blown taboos only because of the easy availablility of the shufra deshufra of these products. How many of us tolerate non-glatt meat? Hardly any. Is non-glatt meat kosher? Absolutely. Why should chodosh be any different if it is procurable? Yes, if someone is stuck in yenimsveldt and has to eat, pull out all those sfek sfeikas and make a decision. But if yoshon is easily available in Monsey or Lakewood, I think one should make the utmost effort to get it. Sometimes old heterim die hard.
On the same note, I think my thoughts here are applicable to other areas such as tcheiles (yes), horseradish maror (no),and a few other issues.