I always do the same thing when I'm confused... start looking in directions I haven't looked in yet. And I noticed something interesting.
AAF starts getting called out about Neph. I can't exactly remember where in the process this happened, but Rich says this to AAF:
Seems to me that Rich doesn't have much of a problem with Neph here. He even goes on to say that Labby is more interesting.
Then with no real explanation, both of those are out the window and Neph gets his vote. Talk about some back-tracking.
It struck me as odd. I also feel like Rich has been more active in this game than most, but for the life of me I can't remember a thing that he's said. I'm used to Rich not posting much, but when he does he posts content. This is a very fluffy game for Rich so far. I'll have to go back and look a little more closely, but this seems odd to me. I guess at this point it's a "gut feeling".