Yes, so I do not want to hear this is a complete bust!
The daylight hours were and the smoke is the likely cause of the bust here, but again, there is far too much focus on what did *not* go right rather than what did! I can count on one hand how many times in the last 30 years that anywhere in New England has had golf ball sized hail between midnight and noon.
Bona fide supercells between midnight-noon in New England are rare.
And even thought the models overdid the overnight convection, it all quickly dissipated once near the MA border by 10z, which is exactly what the HRRR showed Tue eve.
So is the above just to be discounted? Sometimes events do not work out at fcst, and I can't tell you how many times in the Midwest/Plains/Southeast on paper everything looks awesome for svr wx parameters and a HIGH risk is issued, and under-performs. Things do not change meteorologically just b/c this is the NEUS. Sure, volatile atmospheres like this are uncommon here, esp. a strong EML, but that is irrelevant as to if it works out all as fcst or not.
This is an excellent opportunity to learn from our mistakes, model shortcomings, and conditional factors that can crop up at the last minute (e.g. thick smoke). I for one will be investigating/researching the role of wildfire smoke on convection now. It was already mentioned earlier about how it impacts +CG frequency.
And just b/c the smoke was a determinant to convection this time, does not necessarily mean it always is. You need to ask, does it matter if it is thin or thick smoke? Does the height and vertical depth of the smoke layer matter? Not all smoke particulates are the same, so that does matter as to things like CCN (CoastalWx should appreciate this b/c he is big on sea salt CCN for OES! ).
Turn an experience that was not good or did not work out into something positive. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want/expect, and thus you are that much better off going forward!