Your point about LLMs aside, I'd trust the inside source over whatever carefully baked misrepresentation the PR department doles out.

Unfortunately that inside source is often coached by the PR department and are just there to say things they can't get away with saying publicly or don't want to have their exact words on record. I.e. just as much a misrepresentation as the official press releases. Or sometimes even more of a misrepresentation since nobody can actually be held accountable for their words.

It's arguably more reliable than some rando above doing napkin math and zero actual experience or evidence

Not in my experience. Most LLM answers are bullshit; and they almost never say they don’t know. Most people would just look at you and say ‘I don’t know’ instead of just making something up.