I saw the title of this thread on the main page. Before opening it, I knew who posted it. You always come up with interesting research.
Honestly, I'm not sure what I think of CLA - I've used it and I actually got some of it in bulk a long while back. I was using CLA, Fish oil and Sesamin for 6-9 months straight when I got back into working out and without changing anything else in my diet - but again I was working out - I lost about 30 pounds. Not overly scientific, but I often wonder how much we look for acute effects when we should be considering long term effects. CLA certainly won't cause pounds of fat loss over 1-2 months.