2012 Happ was good so I wouldn't have had a problem with that. Most of the regular posters were favourable to him (and some were cautious but had hope), Zeke was really just the bad apple of the bunch.
Pretty much, yep. If he pitched to his career averages, it would have been a break-even type deal. If his Pittsburgh changes were even somewhat sustainable, it would have been a bargain. There was very, very limited downside at the time of the signing.
I loved the Happ/Estrada diversification moves rather than spending all available money on one guy and going with a stars and scrubs rotation, and I think most people either agreed, or at least understood they idea behind it. The signings looked good at first, and they only looked better when guys like Chen, Leake, and Kennedy started signing for $70+ million. I think a lot of the issue with some of the more negative posters is that they underestimate the difficulty of finding average starting pitchers for cheap, so signing Price seems like a great idea to them because they can just go out and sign a bunch of cheap reclamation projects and let them duke it out.