There are rules about what they can buy but I believe they were...

There are rules about what they can buy but I believe they were well under that at the time. Anyway, can't go back and re-do with what we know now, otherwise I'd be much much richer. Maybe they were not expecting the price to go up as fast as it has, they have bought back less than 2% of the shares on issue and the price is up well over 50% from the lowest price during the buy back period

As a semi-retiree I get where you are coming from with the dividend but they have been so patchy over the last few years I'm not sure a modest reduction to extend the buy back would be an issue but I can see why they might be reluctant to do that. I will definitely be disappointed if the dividend is raised at the expense of extending the buyback while prices are well below what they last issued shares at though.