I heven't read through everything here, as I came in quite late in the conversation. As an answer to the basic question, Permaculture is a design system for sustainable human settlements (from teh Designers Manual) so, if a person is doing sustainable stuff, but NOT designing a system, it isn't really Permaculture. By the same token, people who design a system, decide it doesn't work and give up, are ignoring the Permaculture principle of "Apply self regulation and ACCEPT FEEDBACK" (Holmgren, Principles and Pathways).
As to what is actually being asked in the original post (as oppose to just the topic) it seems Collin is seeing Permaculture as an all or nothing sort of situation. Bill Mollison sort of addressed this sort of thinking (possibly in the Designers Manual, my copy of which seems to have disappeared from its spot next to my computer for just such discussions) when he talked about a "type one error". Mollison suggests that people should start where they are, with what they have and do what they can. So Collin's "silly little polyculture (I think is how he phrased it) if designed and managed according to the Principles, is the right thing to do. Protracted and thoughtful observation (Introduction to Permaculture, Molison et al.) may potentially help get it from being a "silly little" polyculture, to a point where it is a "productive little polyculture." In the mean time, anything we can all do to conserve natural resources is s step in the right direction. It is not an all or nothing. Doing what the Original Poster is doing, or doing what Sepp Holzer is doing (and his system does provide commercial quantities of some products I believe) it can potentially be Permaculture, and it is most certainly a step in the right direction.
