I agree to the extent I am not persuaded by the "need to fully...

I agree to the extent I am not persuaded by the "need to fully understand the ore body" school of thought because there is no end to it ... "fully understand the first five years of production" maybe, but in the end the only truly definitive study is to actually mine.

But are they deferring production, or just staying on the explorer part of the Lassonde curve with announcements and drilling while preparing to mine in the background?

No one is pretending they are not going to mine. The declines are going in and they have ordered the long lead time items like paste plant and ball mill (I think). So what would be different if they went on and on about imminent mining? Tunnel faster?

I am also a bit bemused by posts based on the gold price at any one time ... they can only mine a week's worth of gold in any one week. Sure the market gets excited by gold price movements but mining gold is a long game that depends on the gold price over years if not decades, unless someone is saying they should hedge at current prices.

I do agree there is a limit to spending current investor funds on drilling to benefit holders a decade in the future when the mine finally gets there ... but I always planned to stay into production so I am ok with it, and I want to see what is in some of those undrilled areas.