I've never asked a question that was triggered by another question on here before. I'm sorry I did this time. Clearly, I misread the rules of the game.
But consider: a defense attorney asks a police officer in court, 'How long does it usually take to get a search warrant?'
The officer says, 'It takes what it takes.'
I put it to you that that would not be considered satisfactory by the defense attorney, the judge (if it came to that - judges don't like contempt any more than I do), or the officer's superiors.
You state as a fact (when it's an opinion, of course, but one your entitlement to which I'd die to defend) that I changed the details to see if the answer changed. Well, insofar as I was forced to do so in an attempt to get a straight answer, yes. But a straight answer at the start would have precluded all that. I suggest that I was the victim of an attempt at 'smartness' (not by you), which left me with an answer that must be vaguer than the truth: even if the longest it's taken in someone's experience to get a warrant is one year or ten years, that's a finite time. It is not 'as long as it takes.'
As for backhanded swipes, I made none; to do so would have been unconscionably rude when I was asking for help in understanding something with which I'm totally unfamiliar. It was certainly not my intention to waste anyone's time (including my own).
Your 'wrapper' appears to have been somewhat counter-productive, but, as I've already said, I've never tagged onto the end of someone else's question before and I won't do it again. And I will indeed look elsewhere for a satisfactory answer, since I only got half of it here.

