Surely the two leading candidates must be (a) the model is just not that good, or (b) it is misaligned in a pretty obvious way that can't be swept under the rug.

They're definitely "down", but by no means "out". They're probably back in another "code red" and will need to deliver something leading edge in some area next. My bet is that Google will be the first to crack continuous knowledge cutoff updates to their model.