Imagine I say my house burned down and I lost everything, and someone (here: neycoda) points out I haven't lost everything because I still own the land underneath the house. Pedantic? Maybe, but still correct. At no point would neycoda state it wasn't a negative outcome, just that "left with nothing" was not true. So in the analogy, it doesn't make sense to ask him if he would like you to put his house on fire... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

I am pedantic, when I think it helps clarity and understanding.

Here it does not. The goal of a sale is to make money, if there was no deal, than it was no success by that metric.

But what is the purpose of saying the sides walk away with nothing? What kind of information does it convey? Obviously if the deal wasn't closed, then it was no success, but it seems to me to say anyone walked away with nothing tries to really communicate that there was no upside whatsoever - and so it's perfectly valid for neycoda to point out it's not actually true.