Is the Saffir-Simpson Scale outdated?

[Greenday75]

This question was just posed on a prestigious legal fora that I frequent.    It seems the scale just measures winds at elevation.  Couldn't a cat 2 or 3 have higher surface winds than a cat 4 or 5?  Or at least more wide spread winds.  

[Roger Smith]

This is not the case, the scale is based on surface wind speeds. Surface wind speeds are conventionally measured at 10 meters above the actual surface but it would seem that the question is based on a misconception that the scale is based on winds measured a lot higher up than that. It is not, perhaps the opinion formed when somebody read an account of how winds are estimated at the surface from known values at a given elevation from an aircraft probe or a dropsonde. 

What may vary is the extent of hurricane force winds outward from the center, in general this will be proportionate to the intensity on the SS scale but you get cases like Charley in 2004 that had a very tight core, and the distance to lower SS values might have been less than with Katrina or perhaps other major hurricanes. It remains true whatever scale we use that a maximum will be one thing and the value at any given point in the storm will be something less. That is inevitable.