Blaming consultants for so-called Y2K hype is the intellectual equivalent of blaming doctors for disease, meteorologists for hurricanes, geologists for earthquakes. There will be failures, and a tiny number of them can have devastating consequences because the number of coded dates and embedded systems is so damn large.
Techies only go so far.
And over the past 28 years things have really only gotten worse. And this is not to deny the fact that Y2K is a major problem. One final item. I've written widely on the problem. The public affairs official e-mailed me back and asked me to call him later that week.