got to disagree with you ed. your forecast is very well thought out, but the way you read into climate signals is pretty focused on strong el nino events that seem unlikely or easily mitigated circumstances. for one i think the sst statistic is overrated, since we have often seen early and late season storms form over marginal ssts recently. second there has been a trend to more intense systems in recent years and i reckon it to be part of a long cycle that require massive counter-influences (eg. 1997 ENSO event) to override. third i figure that we are partially evolved into a 1993 like summer pattern that will continue evolving, and with relatively normal basin shear (a halfway developed central and western pacific el nino) and large ridges close to the continent we will get more high latitude cut away trough induced systems that meander close to north america. this opposed to the recent tendency for fast westward moving low latitude systems that struggle as they speed, then nicely recurve and intensify as they do well out to sea. in recent years a combination of a more prominent atlantic ridge and teleconnecting east coast trough have given us lots of nasty strong systems that all ran out into the northern ocean like lemmings. i'm betting against a fourth consecutive installment of danger mostly to hatteras and the caribbean.
this year i think--more shallow low to mid-latitude development spread out in a more erratic pattern, and no more harmlessly trained storms. also less tendency for storms to form close to the cape verdes, but closer to the caribbean. basically i think this year has different facets applied to the same configuration that has given us higher activity recently, but are arranged to give us more bang for our buck.
and besides, dont want to change my old guess: 12-8-4
there, out on my limb, where i like to be.