  We examine the uncertainties involved in the off-mass-shell extrapolation of
the $K\rightarrow \pi\pi$ decay amplitude with emphasis on those aspects that
have so far been overlooked or ignored. Among them are initial-state
interactions, choice of the extrapolated kaon field, and the relation between
the asymptotic behavior and the zeros of the decay amplitude. In the inelastic
region the phase of the decay amplitude cannot be determined by strong
interaction alone and even its asymptotic value cannot be deduced from
experiment. More a fundamental issue is intrinsic nonuniqueness of off-shell
values of hadronic matrix elements in general. Though we are hampered with
complexity of intermediate-energy meson interactions, we attempt to obtain a
quantitative idea of the uncertainties due to the inelastic region and find
that they can be much larger than more optimistic views portray.
