To be fair, there was plenty to pick apart, and there was the eerie similarity to the letters from other companies. And they (all) refuted "direct access" but weaseled / legalesed out of any kind of actual refutation of excessive access to data.

This is much clearer. This is what everyone very obviously wanted at the very beginning, and it does seem strange that they didn't do this then, or at all sooner. What took them so long?