The whole reason why people think of it as being an incredible amount of longevity is because of the NASA spin. Both of those say the planned mission was for 90

The whole reason why people think of it as being an incredible amount of longevity is because of the NASA spin. Both of those say the planned mission was for 90 days, and so you get things like the exchange in the Opportunity comic of "11 years, wow."/"Wasn't the original mission 90 days?"/"This is starting to get weird.", or things like the Spirit comic having "Day 1944 of 90." Neither of these really work if NASA says, "We're hoping for a decade, but our minimum goals are 90 days." It works because of the NASA spin, "Wow, this was only supposed to be a 90 day mission/5 flights, but we can't believe how much these things have exceeded our expectations!" If people are continuously telling you their work is so amazing that they're blown away by how much the results have exceeded their expectations, you should probably question how honest they're being with you.