...i was thinking the same thing, that wilma decoupled in the frictional environment of land-based boundary layer, as she moved across the peninsula and that her max winds probably never really came down all that much but were lifted above.. now (as you hint) that she is out over water, maybe can once again couple her wind field with the ss...

...but, in the end i have to give it to NHC because they have several techniques, tried and true, for determining wind max and i doubt all those agencies were wrong... ho - hum..

...i'm a little concerned when looking at: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/nwatl-ir4-loop.html .....that wilma may pass a little bit closer to the ne u.s. coastline... you can really see powerful vort max over eastern ohio, effectively tipping the entire baroclinic leaf that is evident in the sat dramatically n in the last 2-3 hours... but, even the 12z guidance has wilma maintaining a separate entity, not really actually getting all that absorbed into the cyclogenisis along the mid atlantic... (the latter would be impressive if that happened!) anyway, it's a eerie series of images in that loop, and if you didn't know the history and/or didn't have models to depend on - and only saw this - you'd be spooked!