Penetration testing via shrinkware

["Stout, Bill" <StoutB () pios com>]

What are the opinions on the thoroughness of shrinkwrap software
penetration testing?  Is today's shrinkware more capable for penetration
testing (a single machine) than a human?

I'll take one example of a tool, Internet Security Scanner.  It can do a
complete external scan of the currently known vulnerabilities of a
machine or subnet.  ISS is very consciensious of keeping up to date with
vulnerabilities.

Some counter-points I have are:
  o The human needs to do data collection about the target through
whois, nslookup, search engines, anonymous or spoofed phone calls, etc.
  o The human element still needs to select the targets, the connection
path (dial-up, X.25, Internet, hops via private links, etc), the social
engineering, the password crackers, etc.  
  o The human also needs to define the D.O.S. threshold of the target,
and limits on brute force efforts.  
  o The tests won't detect sniffers installed at the target's ISP.

Say someone wants to do penetration testing and security auditing for a
company, and use various types of shrinkware to do it.  Any comments?

Bill Stout