"Obviously, the area tested wasn't believed to be a patch at the time. Because carbon 14 testing is destructive, there won't be any more tests in the forseeable future."
You really believe this, that a tiny tiny patch picked out by a Bishop from a huge piece of cloth was an accident?
Sorry I am not buying that.
Apparently there are patches all over this thing, it was bad luck.
Then what about the mountain of evidence that points to the Shroud's authenticity? Do you just ignore that?
It seems more reasonable to me to believe that the one countervailing piece of evidence is somehow erroneous.
Good, you shouldn't because it wasn't an accident. The area sampled was adjacent to an area that had already been sampled. After unilaterally rejecting the agreed upon protocols which called for seven samples from all areas of the shroud, the custodian of the Shroud decided that the least amount of damage would be done by cutting more from an area that had already been cut.
If anything, it was through a misguided zeal to protect the Shroud that has caused all this fuss.