Agreed. I think I understood you as being more dismissive of speculation per se.
As for the original question -- why are we not taking them at their word? -- the best I can offer is my initial comment. That is, the available facts (that is, what board members have said) don't really match anything most people can reconcile with their model of how the world works.
Throw this in together with a learned distrust of anything that's been fed through a company's PR machine, and are we really surprised people aren't attempting to reconcile the stated reality with their speculative theories?
Now sure, if we were to do things properly, we should at least address why we're just dismissing the 'facts' when formulating our theories. But, on the other hand, when most people's common sense understanding of reality is that such facts are usually little more than fodder for the PR spin machine, why bother?
As for the original question -- why are we not taking them at their word? -- the best I can offer is my initial comment. That is, the available facts (that is, what board members have said) don't really match anything most people can reconcile with their model of how the world works.
Throw this in together with a learned distrust of anything that's been fed through a company's PR machine, and are we really surprised people aren't attempting to reconcile the stated reality with their speculative theories?
Now sure, if we were to do things properly, we should at least address why we're just dismissing the 'facts' when formulating our theories. But, on the other hand, when most people's common sense understanding of reality is that such facts are usually little more than fodder for the PR spin machine, why bother?