Yeah that was my point. There are always "experts" to be found who can't imagine a particular exploit working. Reality is not limited to some dude's imagination, so we should have read the initial articles for what they were: "nothing to see here, move along." If we knew then what we know now, such articles would have piqued our curiosity. Therefore, the fact that they were published does pique my curiosity.
It reminds me a little of something we say, more or less: "this device does not read its data sheet". It comes up a lot when a physical device does not behave the way you might expect from reading its accompanying documentation.
