"Official statements have been made about prior expectations of the early Bible students that allowed for personal reflection."
Garbage.
1. They haven't made statements about all their false and failed predictions, nor all their abandoned teachings, only a few and only because they had to. When their failure is known they have to do some damage limitation and trot out a few lies and excuses. They habitually lie about their past. All the Society has done is hide or twist the facts and outright lie regarding certain events in their history. This shows they aren't interested in honest 'personal reflection', just re-writing the past.
2. These weren't the 'prior expectations' of the early Bible students', there were the teachings and false predictions of the Society, which because they presented them as fact, and as from God, Bible Students were required to accept them. If the Bible Students 'expected' anything it was only because Russell and his cohorts told them to.
This is the Society's typical tactic of blaming their victims: they teach the Bible Students something as fact, pretending to be the F&DS, then it fails, and then later they speak is if t as if it was "The Bible students expectation", totally ignoring the fact that they made them expect it, and insisted on expectation!
Their spin is like a dinner party host deceptively speaking of the "sickness of the guests spoiling the evening" when it was his contaminated food that poisoned them all!
What spineless frauds and hypocrites the WTBTS are.