I have spoken with Phoenix on Skype a few times + bought a Jupiter from him, where I trusted him by sending the coins first and then waited for the miner to arrive from Hawaii.
From these interactions I can conclude with fair certainty that it is highly unlikely he is a scammer.
I thing he just fell for the scam because greed took over and he wanted to be first in line as usual.
I agree with you that both are not scammers. My comment did not mean to imply that. I honestly think they are not conspiring with the fraudsters. What I mean is that they are terrible stupid for try to bash the people providing warnings and then later use the same warnings to pretend they did not help to pump up the sales. I hope they learn that send money to fraudsters is not the best way to prove the fraudsters are not fraudsters.
People, including myself, did try to warn them from early on. Greed got the better of them though and then denial took over.