Scepticism about Vegetius\' analysis of the Late Roman Army?

[Thiudareiks Flavius]

Dietwulf Baatz, "Vegetius' Legion and the archaeological facts", Roman Fortresses and their legions, ed. Brewer, 2000.

An excellent paper in which Baatz concludes that "Vegetius' legio antiqua never existed. It would appear that Vegetius reconstructed his legio antiqua from information that was both insufficient and derived from different periods, and that any gaps were filled by suppositions based on the contemporary situation. ... It is very unlikely that Vegetius' legio antiqua ever existed as described and, therefore, most of his statements and figures should be mistrusted".

Thanks, but I'm really looking for detailed analysis regarding how reliable Vegetius is about the Army in his own time. For example, Simon Macdowell's The Late Roman Infantryman:236-565 AD quotes Vegetius on later Roman troops neglecting to wear armour and helmets and then points out that this is not borne out by other evidence; eg Amminaus or iconographic evidence. Hugh Elton gives several other reasons for being highly sceptical of Vegetius on this point (Warfare in Roman Europe AD 350-425, p. 110-11).

The impression I've got is that Vegetius was a civilian with no military experience and some highly romanticised (and slightly garbled) ideas about how the Roman Army had been in its heyday. Writing the wake of military set-backs of the late Fourth Century, Vegetius takes an armchair expert's view, eulogising the early Army and contrasting it with his ideas about the current force, despite not really having any great knowledge of either (a bit like some old conservative writing a letter to the editor claiming that all the worlds woes would be solved if they brought back compulsory military service, re-introduced caning to schools and made all young people get a proper haircut and shinier shoes).

But since people who insist that the Late Roman Army was an armourless, ill-disciplined, barbarised rabble (one that, despite this, somehow kept on winning battles) occasionally cite Vegetius, I'm interested in any detailed analysis of how reliable he is on the Army of the late Fourth to early Fifth Centuries.
Cheers,