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Greg, there are ring spectra and there are ring spectra: in the homotopy category and on the point-set level. The older sources like Switzer cannot possibly treat the modern world of point-set level ring and module spectra. In that old world, the cofiber of a map of module spectra is not a module spectrum: very unsatisfactory, and I'm sure not what Bak is looking for. One intentionally undetailed source is Modern foundations for stable homotopy theory'' (by EKMM authors) in I.M. James Handbook of algebraic topology''.
