Yes, generally you pay third parties for their consulting services which is exactly what RDX Works did here. Are you familiar with the history of Jepsen tests? Because this report is a pretty standard analysis of his. I think if you read some of the other distributed systems analyses he has done this would be quite clear. Your take away that this was some sort of a "shade throwing" event is pretty bizarre.
I'm familiar with Jepsen. Most consultants may not be willing to lie, but they'll take care not to mention what you pay them not to mention. If this work was done by anyone else they'd probably say something like "performance was not evaluated because the contract only covers correctness", but no, Aphyr has to dissect the false marketing in detail. And Radix had the balls to hire him presumably knowing that this is what he does.
