Would you have taken his comments as seriously if he would have adopted a style of communication where he would be more forthcoming? That other style would have

Would you have taken his comments as seriously if he would have adopted a style of communication where he would be more forthcoming? That other style would have included all kinds of 'nice' words, that distract from the message and provide all kinds of room for you to think that 'it wasn't as bad', 'I only need to polish/fix some details'. I think swombat has done you the favor of driving the seriousness of your mistakes home, making sure you don't forego thousands of dollars, just because he was trying to be nice. In a face to face conversation, you can be nice all you want, because you have both time and non-verbal oppurtunities to make the point. The internet is different, for better and for worse.