Except that it wasn’t rhetorically sound. When it was initially argued that it was a lab produced virus, there zero evidence and was purely used for political posturing. As such, the argument was rejected by many.
I don’t run out and do significant new research every time somebody drags out something that I saw no reason to believe in the past - I would never get anything done if I did! “The boy who cried wolf” is a bit allegorical here.
The other part of this is that the lab leak hypothesis has been used as a gateway by people peddling anti-Asian rhetoric, including that this was a bioweapon or evil plot to cripple America. As such, I tend to tune out of such discussions pretty fast. It’s like if somebody mentions judaism and bankers in the same sentence - I can normally just assume whatever comes next will be nonsense. There’s so much bullshit on the internet that paying attention to all of it would be crippling, and unfortunately the lab leak idea managed to become associated with that sort of vitriol early on.
That said, even today I reject any definitive affirmative on the lab leak hypothesis. There’s nothing even vaguely approaching hard evidence, and the less dramatic explanation still seems to have very good scientific support. If/when somebody pulls out better evidence I’ll reconsider.