Mike,
I agree that "concentration" or "stream of consciousness" are important phenomena to describe, as would anyone I think, but they sit near/at the top of a pyramid of other phenomena which are equally, if not more, important because of their primacy and foundation in establishing those that you mention.  It's not that people don't study it, but that there are different ways to approach it (bottom up, top down, etc)

Stream of consciousness is, I think, the archetypical example of lax analysis in this field that perfectly demonstrates why so much (pre-computational) philosophy is largely worthless.  As a term, it was appropriated by the arts and psychoanalysis and from there has entered everyday language, denoting in a quasi-artistic-logical manner the general ability of humans to represent thought symbolically in the medium of their choice.  But when James or anyone else talks about it, what do they mean?  It is nothing more than a placeholder for a more fundamental process, like "gravity", and without elucidating what that process is, all the discussion of the word itself is just a caucus-race.  

In James' time, these terms were the tools of the trade, but now we have much better equipment with which we can be thinking about this.  Let's chuck out all the old terminology, and work from a scientific foundation.  We need to study how "concentration" and "stream of consciousness" arise, and biology makes this a computational affair.  Philosophy may act as a guide, but should not be taken as "truth" of any kind, for it is nothing but the contemplations of certain men.

You mention at the end that it shall become "self-evident" that conscious thought is not algorithmic.  Many people argue this position, notably for me Roger Penrose (though he says "non-computational"), but I think the burden of proof is on them (and Penrose didn't succeed IMO).  On what foundation do you base this?  Is there any merit in discussing these old fashioned terms?  People have been using them for ages and yet our understanding through these words is no better than when they were explored artistically, psychologically and philosophically over a century ago.

David