Two problems of current interest in the use of polarization observables for pseudoscalar meson photoproduction to probe the basic dynamics are discussed. The first one concerns the extraction of the ratio of electric quadrupole to magnetic dipole transition strengths in the photo-excitation of the . The predictions of various models are compared with the recent LEGS and MAMI data obtained with polarized photon beams. The second one is a proposal by Saghai and Tabakin to use the nodal structure of spin observables to unveil underlying dynamics in the production process. We demonstrate with the example of at photon energy that the assumption of multipole truncation, which enters into their nodal analysis, is questionable.