hello there!!
I guess every one has their say and i dont see any wrong in what this person is saying.
If we consider the current processing time it has been increased to 20 months. WhereaS, few people say they filed their application in Jan 2016 and have already received their DM which comes as a shock to everyone!! I highly doubt those posts as well as there are no updates on Spreadsheets. Additionally 2015 applications are still pending. Rather than thinking you are unlucky or blaming government for being unfair we rather make sure that the posts are true/correct. And talking about "no one has so much time to fool around here", why don't we go check a few updates from earlier that mentions they received a faque immigration call. There is always a possibility of people spamming around specially when its an online portal.
The only way to make sure that it is correct is if they take time to update the spreadsheet or maintain a proper communication, and just saying... it doesn't take much of an effort to update spreadsheet, its pretty straight forward.
good luck