One of the things I found in my hunt through AfDs for
invalid
nominations and speedies was that there was a very, very small
portion of the 117 articles I looked through that needed to be there.
15 or so should have been slam dunk keeps, or at least merges.
Another good chunk were speedies. An equally large chunk, however,
were, if not speedies, at least things that any sensible person who
watches AfD for a day or two could determine the result of in
advance. If we add "verifiability" as a speedy criterion, the number
that could be speedied goes to around 85%, I think.
Verifiability is already a reason to move something to the talk page, and a
blank article is certainly a speedy (unless it was created by an admin),
isn't it?