I'd probably say that compared to historical opinion of them, their popularity is at an all-time high!
Well there are certainly plenty of lies and damned lies around in this government so it's a fair bet that the third member of the trilogy won't be far behind!
If you listened to the "Round the Grounds" programme on R5L last night, you would have heard a classic case of people who should know better ridiculing "football statistics" rather than the misuse of them. I take your point that the popularity of stats is at an all time high, in the sense that it is virtually impossible to read anything football related nowadays without some stat or other being regurgitated. But, as sportsrated says, most of it is frivolous.