where was the transition within fossil record?? [Stalled: randman]

You speak as though fossilization occurs at some given rate. It's a purely hit and miss affair.

What kind of numbers do you figure one would need to do such a study?

How about if we count up all the known fossils in the world and divide that into the number of species known to have ever existed? We could come up with a ratio--the number of known fossils per species, on average.It might be a chore counting up all the fossils, of course.
Also, there's the problem of identifying a new species. What one person might call a distinct species, somebody else might not. But I suppose one could ignore that.

Thanks for the well-written post, Irishrockhound. Very lucid.

There are no speciation events. One might speak of a speciation "process."