But was it a good idea? There seems to be serious questions as to whether you can collect just a drop of blood and get accurate test results in the presence of tissue and extracellular fluid.

It's a good idea the same way UBeam is a good idea: it would be superb if it wasn't physically impossible.

That's not a good idea, it might be a good fantasy, an idea needs to be at least somehow feasible and not be contradicted by the laws of physics.

I've seen a lot of people say that, and I believe them. This idea just occurred to me though... what if you use a gentle vacuum to pull more blood out of the pinprick? I get the impression that you need a lot more volume to even out the variations, but if you collected 5x more, maybe there are a few more tests you could do.

The entire point was to not draw much blood. Even trying to solve the problem by drawing more blood would be a tacit admission of failure and a huge signaling risk.

For Theano sure, but maybe for someone else it could be worth a try. I think the draw was less how much blood needed to be drawn and more how invasive the needle is. You can always hide the blood from view if necessary.