The Traditional Excellence Model Universities typically have developed program excellence based on the internal entrepreneurial initiative of individual faculty, or sometimes groups of faculty.
Excellence still is considered primarily in terms of traditional output measures of scholarship.
The opinions that count most are peer opinions. There is nothing truly wrong with the traditional model for academic excellence, if money is no object. In a condition of scarce resources, however, it may be much too slow and imprecise a way to achieve competitiveness in the current environment. In the very near future, as we are rapidly learning uses of the Internet, it may be of very little value to be an institution with the 30th or 40th ranked program in a given discipline. No one may care.