Oh yeah, totally agree - multiple landing page iterations for early stage pre-revenue is silly.
I do cover user acquisition, methods of validation, when to test, types of test, the culture of lean, and more in the roast.
One thing to note however with the buyer you describe - they often make REALLY rudimentary mistakes. I've seen people forget CTAs, links not working, totally confused language (no idea what they do), missing key elements, not written to buyer etc.
Also missing great opportunities to showcase their business more powerfully. For them it's £149 and they have another person look at it and give practical feedback.
Yes there is an issue with the client agreeing with me sharing the data. It's something that is being addressed with new clients.
The main thing is to ensure you AB test. Lots of what's in the post is proven, not just by my own experiments, but by organisations like Unbounce who have global data across 1,000s of pages.
However the true key to improving your own loading page is to grow and act on your own quantqual data.
I shared what I learnt across the 200 pages I reviewed and my focus is on landing page conversion. I am working on the assumption there is some sort of product market fit.
I also included techniques to generate insights - like exit intent, review analytics and heatmaps, introducing a cycle of testing - rather than just telling people what they should do.
Finally, I don't look at naff tricks on the visitor. It's all focused on proven concepts for relaying what makes your business great.
However if you can find anything in the list you feel is some sort of bizarre manipulation or trick I'm happy to look again.
I will actually correct that as one of my insights is to remove confusing acronyms to improve legibility.
Sorry the rest didn't work for you.