I was reading a 360 feedback report today and one of the respondents wrote ... "I wanted to respond neither agree or disagree but that option wasn't there so I went with the more positive option".

This for me is the winning argument (albeit still a fairly marginal one) for having a midpoint on a rating scale.  What would I rather have - someone hedging their bets on a response or someone taking a false position to comply with the forced split of an even rating scale?  360 feedback is, for me, about getting a range of people's opinions on an individual.  It is not that I want forced opinions - rather I want honest opinions.

We rarely see people only answering on the midpoint - the main reason given for a 4 point scale and so I always favour a 3 or 5 point scale. 

Brendan