PCA (Principal Coordinate Analysis) is a very useful method for regression (it ranks linear combinations of the original variables)
HOWEVER
PLS (Principal Component Analysis) is a more useful method for classification (it ranks the original variables) !
I do not understand why it is not covered more extensively (if at all!) in the elementary statistics texts..
I have several posts in BOTH the NEWSGROUP and ANSWERS.
Hope this is helpful.
THANK YOU FOR FORMALLY ACCEPTING MY ANSWER!
GREG