"the main thing still in my mind is that the lab escape version of this is so friggin' likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario"
As an understatement, I don't think the authors accurately conveyed what their priors on the origin really were, nor what data they encountered to so dramatically shift these priors.
I agree with your description of what these correspondents consensus seemed to be at the time of writing.
I don't see how this is at all consistent with that the paper claimed - "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible", nor how it was portrayed by the media - "COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin".
As an understatement, I don't think the authors accurately conveyed what their priors on the origin really were, nor what data they encountered to so dramatically shift these priors.