I agree. One last question though. IIRC, when Simon made it to Camp he wasn't alone, there were one or two other people there. I don't remember anyone trying to organize a rescue effort for Joe. Is that correct, or did they but were impeded by weather? Also, wasn't mention made by these climbers that they prided themselves on climbing with minimal gear, and would more gear have made any difference?
There was another guy whose name I can't recall at the moment. He wasn't a mountaineer, though, just a traveller (who didn't even know Joe and SImon's last names). They'd run into him on the way and convinced him to come along and watch the camp while they climbed so that the locals wouldn't loot everything. When Simon came off the mountain, he was in pretty bad shape himself, exhausted and suffering from frostbite. More importantly, though, he simply assumed Joe was dead. He'd seen the drop and the crevasse below.
Also, wasn't mention made by these climbers that they prided themselves on climbing with minimal gear, and would more gear have made any difference?
They were doing it "alpine style", which means you carry everything with you and do the mountain in one push from base camp, as opposed to the expedition style where you establish a series of stocked camps all the way up over a series of days. I'm not sure what more gear would have accomplished, though, and that mountain--which was essentially just a giant rock face up to the ridge, wasn't really appropriate for the expedition style.