Your statement that phylogenetics is phylogenetic classification appears to me to be the heart of this problem One can derive a phylogeny without creating a classification from it in fact this is a common approach because 1 a phylogeny is likely to come out differently with the next analysis that is based on different or greater amounts of data and 2 conflicting phylogenies are often produced for the same group of organisms if different loci are used or if organelle DNA is compared with nuclear DNA Some cladistic practitioners are fond of stating that a phylogeny is a hypothesis it is always challenged by the next phylogenetic analysis of the same organisms Classification is a later step a step that takes into account how the classification is to be used and makes decisions that compensate for the lack of absolutely complete data because data are never absolutely complete