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But it will be hard to avoid the issue when Apple reports earnings Tuesday. Microsoft Corp. faced the same issue before eventually relenting to shareholders with its own $32 billion dividend in 2004.

"Optimal capital allocation doesn't matter until it does," says Ken Broad, a fellow portfolio manager at Delaware Investments. He points out that the stock-based compensation culture of Silicon Valley has perverted the balance sheets of companies like Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple.

Employee shares, carrying an expected return on equity of, say, 11%, are being issued en masse while cash continues to accumulate, returning less than 0.75% per year. It's like taking a credit-card cash advance and putting it in a passbook savings account.

"Who would ever do this in their personal lives?" asks Mr. Broad.

By virtually any measure, Apple's numbers speak for themselves. Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, who has been hammering on the issue since last summer, calculates that Apple could pay out a 4% dividend, buy back $20 billion in shares and still add $10 billion to its cash pile this year.

Even a $15 billion acquisition of Netflix Inc., to name just one example, could be easily financed, leaving room for a massive buyback or dividend, he says.

"I think it has been beyond the point of being rational for a while now," says Mr. Sacconaghi.

If anything, Mr. Jobs's surprise leave of absence only heightens tensions over Apple's cash approach. Apple stock fell immediately in markets outside the U.S. after word of Mr. Jobs's medical leave hit Monday. That's partly because the company is still, incredibly, viewed as a growth stock, making it more volatile on the upside and downside.

Adding a dividend and buybacks might put the stock in the hands of value investors, who would help stabilize the ownership base and diminish some of that volatility, Mr. Sacconaghi says. He recently counted how many of the 10 biggest value-investing funds own the stock. The number: zero.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment, referring me to previous statements on company conference calls.

Perhaps the best statement on the topic comes from Benjamin Graham, the doyen of value-stock investing and inspiration to billionaire Warren Buffett.

Public shareholders have the power to "enforce appropriate standards of capital efficiency in their own interest," Mr. Graham wrote in 1949. "To bring this about they will need more knowledge and gumption than they now exhibit."