Yes it was. Tesla made many promises and you are simply trying to ignore some of them for some reason
Trivial promises that don't mean anything in the greater scheme of things.
The 4 versus 8 cameras is the only ammunition that you have, and I explained why that doesn't make any difference. Someone with FSD is still getting more sensing data (with HW3), and that accomplishes the spirit of it.
Back then FSD wasn't organized as a set of deliverables like it is today.
All the step by step deliverables were under the EAP column along with a promised date. A date they missed by years as it was supposed to be feature complete years ago. They just got done recognizing EAP money from years ago for accounting purposes.
For FSD there was an expectation that some things would come first like L3 freeway driving because that goes under the FSD column, and is the most logical extension from EAP. Its the very first true deliverable that someone is going to expect for FSD. There wasn't an expected delivery date for this.
The city NoA was expected to come much later. There is far more work to be done for City Autopilot than freeway so no one had an expectation for city based features to come first.
With EAP the expectation was NoA, but vastly better than it is today
With FSD the expectation was NoA, but without having to pay attention.
If you really think people would have been satisfied without at least L3 on the freeway then I question whether you really understand people. There is a big difference between the rational excuses we use to buy something versus the emotional reason we really bought them. The people would not have been satisfied with a throw a bone type feature. At most that would have bought them time, but it's not like they didn't have time since what else were we going to buy?
It's ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to remain steadfast on L3 or bust. That this is truly what it's about.
Why?
Cause City NoA might be another lie to buy time.
You have to ask yourself why are we getting things that rely on stop light detection, stop sign detection, etc when we already have NoA on the freeway. Is it because NoA on the freeway is never going to get approval? Which also means City NoA also isn't going to get approval? Why hasn't there been any work to really nail down NoA on the freeway. Why is Smart Summon so stupid even with good map information?
Anything short of L3 puts the responsibility on the driver.
Putting responsibility on the driver is buying time, and falls far short of FSD.
L3 is still short of FSD, but at least it's no longer L2.
City NoA is so weird that autonomous driving experts can't wrap their heads around how it's going to work.