Levin has addressed this "too much, too soon" argument in his articles:

Proceedings of Spie, SPIE-The International Society for Optical Engineering,
"Instruments, Methods, and Missions for the Investigation of Extraterrestrial Microorganisms.
29 July-1 August 1997, San Diego, California.
The Viking Labeled Release Experiment and Life on Mars.
http://www.biospherics.com/mars/spie/spiehtml.htm

Here's an article from Space.com that I think presents both sides fairly:

Viking Data Still Cause Stir About Mars Life
By Michael Paine
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 01:00 pm ET
05 September 2001
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/viking_labeledrelease_010905-1.html

You argue:
"Levin's proposed mechanism for liquid water on Mars was preposterous despite attempts by some regulars here to portray the possibility raised by others for transient liquid water as supporting Levin. Those researchers measured effects of transport mechanisms Levin failed to even take into account."

You only call it preposterous because you don't like the fact that Levin's prediction has been confirmed by experiment. You wouldn't have been surprised by this if you hadn't "ignored" the fact that Carl Sagan had already performed experiments dating back to the Sixties that also showed thin films of liquid water existing under Martian conditions.
Levin's analysis is fine as a preliminary early analysis. He did not take into account the effect wind causing greater evaporation, which the researchers in the recent experimental confirmation did. But of course the wind does not always blow at high speed everywhere on Mars. Levin's analysis is fine under low wind conditions.
It is frequently the case in science that an early analysis does not include all possible factors, and later analysis is more general and confirms the early results in more generalilty.

Bob Clark