> how have your views on this exchange changed?

Not at all, because I am critiquing the authors writings, and for those I don't need to speculate on his intentions. He wrote a comment where he misrepresents the arguments in the paper, while explicitly saying he didn't bother to read it. That's not good enough.

The author of said comment now comes in, after getting criticized, and claims that "yes, I meant that all along" and appends a note about not considering it "much" of a justification. He did not question the justification of the paper, his claim was "I can’t come up with a justification" implying the paper has NO justification for the design. His criticism of the abstract as not covering the design of the experiment rings hollow when he can't be bothered to read the paper itself.

That being said, I am happy that he went back and read the justification, and I do think it's valid to question the conclusions drawn from the design of the study. I too wonder if this result would replicate had the models been provided the entire resume. I too think presenting the model with the entire reconstructed resume would have been a stronger test.