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Talking about decaf sometimes reminds me of the old comedy routine about spaghetti growing on trees.  Almost any story can sound plausible if you don't have the basic information.

The important difference among decaf processes is in which "solvent" is used to dissolve the caffeine.  Chemical solvents, most often methylene chloride (MC), are both effective and cheap.  The problem is not that there is a residue left in the coffee -- MC is highly volatile even at room temp, and remember that coffee is roasted at over 400F -- but rather that there are environmental hazards associated with using toxic substances such as MC on a large scale.

Using water as the solvent solves the environment problem, but water dissolves not only the caffeine but also other, desirable components in the bean, so there's a loss of flavor.  There are ways to mitigate this loss.  The Swiss Water® company has developed (and patented) one such method, as well as a highly effective marketing campaign.  

We favor a third method which uses liquefied carbon dioxide (CO2) as the solvent.  This process was developed in the 1970's by the German company Hermsen and is still done only in their plants in Bremen.  Many coffee origins are now available in this process which is used by many of the country's top specialty roasters.  Not only does CO2 decaf taste better, but, from a roasters viewpoint, it's easier to roast well because it behaves more like regular green coffee.  My only complaint is that Hermsen couldn't market their way out of a coffee bag, so there is little public awareness of the CO2 process and its advantages.