If I worked for six years on something and it still didn't work and someone came in and said it's "x", I would say, "I'm excited to see that data because I really want to fix this." I think I'm more upset at his attitude than anything.

In all honesty, I think what he meant was "I spent six years and failed to fix something that is fixable, and then outside consultants came in a clearly found clear problems in a couple weeks, and now I'm humiliated," but he has too big of an ego for that.