I've maintained all year that the moment David Koch set the bar at "Top 8" before the season had even started that's precisely where Ken set his bar. In my opinion some of the blame falls on Koch for this reason.
It was inevitable Ken would go into survival mode from that point on. It was such a low benchmark with very little probability of many risk v reward moves in the coaching box. Kochie should have just kept his mouth shut in that instance, or at worst said something like "we as a board want to see overall improvement and development with an eye to the future".
Cheers. It just seems like we are going to be quite good for the next few years. Nothing terrible.