Shane,
If they were sure of their methodology, comfortable with their conclusions, then it would seem a waste of their time to try a Lugano do-over on their own dime and time? I can't help but feel that after their reading the critiques by Higgins/GSVIT (Thomas' came much later) maybe even Joshua's too, read the submitted questions, they realized they blew it.
Yes -- this sounds quite plausible.
But nonetheless, from a pure scientific standpoint, it is now null and void.
I agree. But I disagree that it was a scientific paper. It was more in the line of long-form technical journalism. The authors were permitted a peak at Rossi's device, no doubt under NDA, and reported what they were permitted to report, using the (surely flawed) techniques they used. I would not hold the Lugano report up as proof of anything, personally.
A useless piece of paper without the authors commitment to defend it.
I don't think it's useless, personally. It's got two interesting appendixes that describe very abnormal isotope ratios. Perhaps one wants to go along with the caution that Rossi was involved in the extraction. Then by all means one will want to fold that into the estimate of "interestingness." Perhaps one wants to discard the whole report entirely; that's also fine.