Reconsidering Speck

Umm, no. As you wrote yourself,

> the NSA must take most of the blame for that

So, well, they could easily have answered questions about Speck openly. They didn't, thus fuelling the well-deserved suspicion (these days) about any novel crypto thingy proposed by them.

The NOBUS principle might have been a valid doctrine in earlier days. These days it's just hubris. The Puzzle Palace is not an impenetrable fortress; we need to assume that any secret knowledge the NSA has about this algorithm – and they certainly act as if they do have such knowledge – will be made public tomorrow, at which point Speck-based encryption may or may not be a big pile of security theater make-believe. That's not good enough even if you happen not to be a "fanatic".