My take on it is if the baby is "talking" (ie the odd "waa" but not upset) then that's not crying it out. If the baby is crying and distressed than that's "controlled" crying.

With DS, we wait until he's crying rather than talking and if he still won't sleep and we get frustrated then we let him cry for a bit. He knows we go to him as soon as he needs us... but also that we're human and have enough! We leave him until we're calm (usually 2-5 mins) and then go back and he settles a little bit more quickly - but not enough so we're tempted to let him cry!

Sometimes he talks himself to sleep, sometimes he cries for ten seconds then sleeps, sometimes he wants us to hold his hand, sometimes he wants patting... I just wish that it was consistent and he'd do it all by himself every night!