I genuinely don't think I've seen many more disparaging and, quite frankly, disgusting comments about people who are willing to try and preserve something from our railway heritage. Had this group not taken a chance on preserving this unit, then it would have been scrapped a long time ago and anybody who is willing to at least give saving something a chance deserves a huge amount of credit no matter how the preservation plays out. The fact that they did take a chance on it would suggest differently to your claim of they "couldn't be bothered saving it".
Makes me wonder why anybody would want to even try with anything when they get this sort of reaction directed at them!
I don't think it's a hiding to nowhere, I just think you need to have a realistic plan for what the funding will achieve so that people know their money is going in the right direction. I am sure most projects (that don't involve the NRM, a millionaire or a "celebrity") will require the generosity of others to help it to succeed and without that generosity in the past, a good amount of projects that now see locos and units running on heritage lines (or, indeed, the mainline) would never have got off the ground and the traction would have been scrapped well before it had a chance to succeed in preservation.