You know what it comes down to, Someone that is NOT in your location sees things from Their perspective and not yours and acts like their perspective should be yours.
We see it when Powderfreak simply comments that he thinks there will be a significant drop off in N VT (compared to the rest of us) (in other storms) and coastal says to him "you'll be fine". From Scott's perspective if he's raining and PF sees 7" (regardless if 50 miles SE sees 18" he's fine. That perspective can border on pointless from powder freak's shoes even thou you can sort of bend your mind around and see it and usually be like "ok" I get it.
So I think you make a very fair point that if you are flanked by 30 inch amounts and you have 14, you can certainly melt.
There is thou the added perspective in this storm that nobody (including you) was getting jack 4 days ago, and that should be weighed into YOUR current perspective and give you a option for a positive spin on this storm almost regardless of what happens. Some people weigh this more but usually there is a mix of the two, I think anyone would be lying if they got 15" and they were watching radar in the storm and areas on each side (say about 25 miles ) had double but most don't voice it that much because, especially in a situ like this , remember you had nada forecast 14 days ago and well most people like to think positive in life.