The Great Britain team concluded their disappointing campaign at the World Championships with three medals captured on the two final days of competition.
Paula Radcliffe won gold with a stunning piece of front running in the marathon with the men's sprint relay squad and the women's 4x400metres quartet both claiming bronze.
However, national performance director Dave Collins was damning in his assessment of many of the performances, describing them as "unacceptable" and threatened to cut off funding if he did not see the commitment and effort he demands.
Six British athletes - Tim Benjamin, Jo Pavey, Helen Clitheroe, Carl Myerscough, Goldie Sayers and Birchfield Harrier Kelly Sotherton - negotiated the qualifying rounds to reach an individual final but, for the second successive global championships, there was no British athlete in the final of the men's 100 metres or 200m, although Jason Gardener could count himself unlucky in the former after missing out by onehundredth of a second.
With a number of highprofile retirements, as well as injury ruling out the likes of double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes and European long jump silver medallist Jade Johnson, it was essential that the few genuine medal contenders lived up to expectation.
However, Nathan Douglas, who was ranked third in the world, failed to reach the triple jump final, Sotherton could not match her heptathlon Olympic bronze and Michael East, whose season had been disrupted by injury, was 11th in his 1500m semi-final.
The final haul of three medals means the championships were an advance on Paris two years ago but Collins refused to gloss over any shortcomings.
"The manner of some of the losses rather than the fact is a major area of concern," he said. "If someone comes here and they are solidly beaten and they lose trying, then that is fine and I think we have had some very good performers, especially some of the younger performers who have come along and put out, but I think some others haven't.
"They have actually done better earlier in the season and the whole aim of the game is to peak at the major championships. They didn't. It is an issue that we don't have a lot of senior players who can be looked at as role models and almost set the tone for the team."
The former psychologist questioned the approach and manner of performance and is adamant he will consider cutting funds for those he feels are not producing.
"We are all in this situation trying to make people better," he said. "It would be completely unfair to share limited resources around a number of people who are not pulling their weight.
"What we want to achieve and what the public want are medals and final places at major games and if I have athletes who are flatlining in terms of progress, then maintaining their funding and maintaining them in that comfortable situation is unacceptable because I am not working towards my targets.
"So unless they recognise they need to work to reach their targets and buy into that and look to start to improve, why would I continue to fund them?
"We've got people who are not looking for the ways to improve - they don't seem to be asking the difficult questions. In some places, there is too much complacency."
Collins also admits he has "concerns" about the sprint relay team, which includes Birchfield's Mark Lewis-Francis, despite their gold and bronze medals at the Olympics and in Helsinki.
"As individuals, they don't seem to have shown as much progress," he said. "I think there are athletes on that relay team who have come here and done quite well and there are athletes on that team who have stood still or even gone backwards."
Collins does, however, reserve praise for youngsters like Nicola Sanders, Rhys Williams, Goldie Sayers, Robert Tobin and Martyn Rooney, some of whom were in their first major championships.
"Several of them have stepped into first rounds where a large number of people in there have better times than them and acquitted themselves well," he said.
