Thanks Roch for your honest post. I think with me, I started just looking on here for a long while reading everything Mike said, it all made sense to me at the time. When I eventually joined, it still was a while before access to statements and court testimonies and Appeals was available, when I started reading them I think that was the turning point. As you know Hartley and Vidic were formidable and made a lot of sense.
I too was enthralled by Mike's posts. I have to say, if Mike had forced himself to avoid adopting similar tactics to the prosecution, I think he would have went from strength to strength. Some of his posts were superb. However, Mike tried to show us that he too could bend the truth, just like the prosecution had, but for the opposite purposes. The problem with that is that two wrongs don't make a right. I believe it backfired on Mike. Nevertheless, nobody can take away from him, the good stuff he has done and the sublime posts he has posted, despite the other stuff.
Hartley was formidable as a guilter. He could play dirty also - but Mike left himself vulnerable by trying to bend the truth or exaggarate - and this allowed Hartley to start picking him off.
Vic was a nice person and was case knowledgeable from his own research but was very biased. Vic struggled to understand how Mike could post five different views on the same topic - but I could see that Mike was more open to solving something by reconsidering different explanations for it.