Ann: Letter to Shareholders, page-13

I think you are right. But I also think its a matter of the 'independent experts' being bound by conventional thinking.
The BPT proposal estimated the chance of success at ~30% for a much smaller potential resource. This is far from a sure thing. And in purely probabilistic terms, I would think STX's expected return (Chance of success x potential resource size) is much higher.
Its just very hard for experts and the governments to justify handing over tax payers dollars if they risk, down the road, being accused of backing a 'speculative technology."
They will always play it safe, even if this is not playing it safe from a portfolio perspective.