Bob N4HY wrote:

We were all ignorant so I am happy to share blame with anyone who wants to step up.

Don't be too hard on yourself, Bob. This orbital lifetime estimation stuff is difficult. Some researchers think our friend Elon Musk may have overestimated the lifetime of his Roadster by several orders of magnitude:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.04718

de KM1P Joe