I said my piece long ago, hundreds of pages back. I'm happy there's a team working on this deal; and Ironwolf is a real hero--but not a very modest one, and potentially a reckless one. Any publicity began with Ironwolf. If there are repercussions owing to publicity, they won't have stemmed from Duane, or any member of the gaming press, these forums, or Facebook. Some people here really need a dose of reality, especially now that the gaming press is being demonized by some here for reporting on newsworthy events made public--something we can't get enough of when it's convenient for us.
Ironwolf, if publicity could be harmful to something good, then PLEASE don't make something public. But that is what you've done, and have been doing for several months, on the game's largest surviving fan site. Once you've let something like this out of the bag, you can no longer control the public's reaction to it--or the press. The only way to preserve secrecy when it's needed is--guess what--keep your trap shut. When outbursts of publicity occur regarding the negotiations, when you see people shifting the blame away from you and onto others in this forum community and on Facebook, you should be correcting them every time. You made this public. Not them.
I sincerely salute you for your efforts, and in the event that you haven't sabotaged them, I'll be very grateful; but I doubt that I would ever trust you with an important secret. You're very lucky that it took this long for a popular gaming site to pick up this story. You'll be very, very lucky if that's the end of it.