Hopefully I've been able to understand your perspective in this exchange.

I don't believe you've ever understood my perspective. For example:

apportion moral blame?

Weren't you just complaining about twisting words?

I participated in mailing list discussions in the early years (I think 2001-2004 or thereabouts), read Piers' reports, that sort of thing. I didn't pay much attention to YAPCs. I mostly missed Audrey's 2005-2007 involvement. I don't recall seeing the estimates you speak of.

I was on the core design team from 2003 to 2011. I edited Piers's reports for Perl.com. I went to YAPCs. I pair programmed with Audrey in Toronto.

I took notes for every design and status meeting I attended for 8 years. (I counted once; there were enough words in those reports to fill multiple versions of the Camel.)

You will not convince me—and I will correct the record when you try to convince others—that the original delivery plan was anything other than 18 months, that that 18 months figure was repeated frequently, and that there were no serious or successful attempts within the project leadership to deliver a solid, reliable product within that time period.

The closest we came to that was Allison's push to stabilize and release Parrot 1.0.