Logic issues

[RenegadeHealer]

Therefore, not only the solution itself but also the way of deciphering an unknown script is interesting and important. To ask about the way to reach the solution is also a possibility to test a decipherment attempt. Researchers using the trial and error method are unable to explain how the writing system works. Moreover they have to admit that they were only guessing.

Acquiring a deep understanding of how unknown scripts can be deciphered, and planning a systematic approach based on this understanding, is certainly more likely to yield results than a trial-and-error approach. That makes sense. However, if you're saying that any deciphering attempt that takes a trial-and-error approach can (or should) be preemptively dismissed, that's going too far.

A lot depends on how seriously one wishes to take this exercise. I agree that a solid bottom-up methodology, not just a decryption, is a reasonable standard to hold a career cryptographer like yourself to. By the same token, if an amateur researcher has nothing but a hunch, and chooses to investigate it and share what he finds just for fun, he does not deserve a dismissive or condescending response. He owes it to any experts who take the time to  critique his decryption to take the criticism gracefully, and admit, as you put it, "that they were only guessing," and guessed wrong. There is no shame in this.

An amateur hunch-tester taking criticism of his theory less than gracefully is not cool. If he implies that he's equal to an expert, and refuses to defer to real expertise when presented with it, then a dismissive response is fair. My advice to any fellow non-expert amateur enthusiasts of the VMs: Be honest with yourself about whether your decryption method is really working. And if it isn't working, abandon that theory and try again. Share any new hunch-based theory early on in its development if you're planning on sharing it at all. Be humble. Understand and own the limits of your knowledge, and be grateful that any expert is even bothering to respond to you. This way, if your theory doesn't work, you're not so invested in it that you're unwilling to admit you're wrong.

I have come up with six VMs theories. I have thrown away all of them, after seeing logical problems and noticing a lack of decryption power. I have no regrets and no sense of wasted time; I've had an adventure and learned a lot about a lot of different things along the way. I'll probably come up with a few more VMs theories before I die. To each his own.