It sounds counterintuitive, but an interesting article in the Times quantifies something I've noticed myself, that adding water to a beverage can, as opposed to 'watering it down', positively affect the final result:
"It seems silly, debating decimals," Mr. Hoffmann said, "but it makes a big difference to the flavor." A tablespoon of water more or less can shift the extracted solids by a perceptible amount. It also matters how the coffee solids are extracted. Mr. Hoffmann told me that concentrated brews are often made palatable by using a lot of coffee and reducing the brewing time or the temperature to extract only the easy-going portion of its flavor materials. The result is intense but one-dimensional. More fully extracting a smaller amount of gently roasted, high-quality coffee, as Mr. Hoffmann and a number of new-wave brewing advocates are doing, brings out its full range of tastes and aromas.
The story covers a number of alcoholic beverages, but I'm not sure I'm ready to start watering down my Bordeaux collection. I have been using about a third less coffee in my grinder for the last few years, and I've enjoyed the results.
logical i think. less is more?