Root rot from no drainage is sneaky because the plant looks fine for weeks before it crashes, so you blame yourself instead of the setup. What gets people is that the pot sitting in a saucer of runoff looks the same as a pot holding a swamp. Next time you repot, soak the terracotta once before planting so it doesn't pull all the moisture out of your fresh soil.

Ran into the same thing with my group a couple years back. What finally shut them up was tracking our own games for a month, writing down how each winner actually got to 10 points. Turns out roads won maybe two games out of thirty, and most of those were small boards where nobody was fighting for them. The real killers were cities and dev cards, same as that tourney guy found. Longest road is a nice bonus when it falls in your lap, but building toward it every game is just handing your ore and wheat to whoever is spamming settlements. Show your group the actual paper trail from your own table and they will come around way faster than some stat from a stranger on BGG.