Yeah, actually.
I am approaching from a "What would I do if I were scum in this setup" and if I were going to misread-the-setup gambit I'd sure as hell not have done it this way.
There's quite a bit of potential downside to misreading the setup ploys. If you are going to use it, you want to use it early, cash some towncred within the first phase (pre-dance) and use that to gain a partner. Making "scumreads" based upon it seems like incredibly high risk... and I'm not a risk adverse gambiter by any means, but there's no upside here. The potential gains form this gambit is entry to the dance if you expected not to make it. However, he was literally in the dance by page 5. Why continue this gambit with no new upsides for nearly another 90 pages of fast-paced content?
As for the "Well, what if he's scum and just flat out misread the setup" then to believe that reality, you have to go along that:
A: The other scum never discussed optimal play for this setup
B: Guy the 9th never planed for optimal play in the setup in his scum PT
C: Guy the 9th never asked about the setup spec the town was doing in the PT
I just don't buy A B and C happening simultaneously this far into the game, even though we flipped a total lurksack in guy the 7th. If for some reason this is true, the third hypothetical partner would also be a lurksack, or flying under the radar/coasting, in Guy the 3rd, Guy the 2nd, or something of the like. And I get the feeling guy the 3rd could be ruled out as a partner here because a scumteam with guy the 3rd on it has a university master's thesis paper on playing the setup optimally on it the day he replaced in.