You're totally right. The trouble is that when 538 was saying "wait, hold up, we're not sure," and in all their commentary being very clear that that 25% chance

You're totally right. The trouble is that when 538 was saying "wait, hold up, we're not sure," and in all their commentary being very clear that that 25% chance was a real, important possibility, people were taking it as, "oh, they think Hillary has it in the bag." People are taking their being rightfully less certain than anyone else using the same data as meaning they were just as wrong as anyone else, when the data itself was lacking. They weren't. (Of course, the degree to which the data was lacking and the reasons for that lack is another issue in and of itself.)