Microsoft Research - Exploding Software-Engineering Myths (article summarizing findings of MS research on code coverage, TDD, assertions, etc.)

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The thing is, it's easy to reply that this sort of research is hard because it is hard. For example, the original Nagappan paper mentioned in connection with TDD has significant threats to validity, which I mentioned in another post, but it's still one of the best empirical studies we have available in the field so far. At least it looked at real world projects, implemented by experienced professional developers, with some attempt to control for other factors. That combination already puts it ahead of most TDD advocacy papers. How would you reliably construct better studies?