Quote - > Quote - For any given material, there are an infinite number of different shaders that produce it - exactly - with no variation.

Consider my mind officially boggled. 8) And yet - I can understand why this is, given your explanation of how the surface node works.  

It's very basic math (and obvious when you think about it). After all, 1 + 1 = 2.

But so is (1 + 1 + 1 - 1), and ((1 x 1) + 1), and (3 - 1), and (10/5), and (2 x ln(e)), and (log(100)), and...well, there's an infinite number of ways of getting a result of "2" from an equation.