I don’t think they were expecting it to be very impressive the first time around, esp as there was so much pressure on them, including of course from Zero, to rip thru it so as to not pester them anymore. I have heard in 24 hours they have gotten 1,800 Barrels, not bat at all considering how hasty they had to make it. The prayer now is that they can keep improving it by closing the seal and vents more and then use additional methods to get even more. And after some time, they could even try again with fixing the pipes and making a better seal.
I would hence have to argue that what has gotten done is in some ways very impressive. The leaking looks bad, but it always will as long as any comes out at all. And yes, Tony Hayward may be a total jerk off but the BP engineers have been great I still say. Their biggest problem is being abel to give the time and attention to detail each step needs.
if you look at it in this light, the leaking will make more sense.
Imagine the well as a garden hose. Now take a srayer and put it on a hose running at full flow. As you put the sprayer on the hose it will make a horrible mess.
Now tighten down the sprayer half way. It will still look like just as much water is coming out the bottom of the srayer, but when you squeeze the trigger on the srayer you get almost a full flow. Look again, even with the sprayer shooting water quite impressively, it will still look like the same amount of water is coming out from under the Sprayer when it is obvious it is not.
That is basically what we are seeing with the CAP. It IS working, and as long as they can keep hydrates from forming it will continue to work, but even as they close down the vaklves and up the flow into the pipe, the leakage is still going to look as bad as ever even though it will be nowhere near the level it was.