I wouldn't say likely when it was a government-owned phone and he also had a personal phone and went very much out of his way to thoroughly destroy that phone and another. Possible? Sure. But not in any way justifying a "scalable" solution. He doesn't want to look victims in the eye, but he's ignoring human rights activists who have had their identities compromised for less.

Yes. The FBI had offers (from credible firms) to crack the phone from day 2. (After they screwed it up and started talking about it.) They didn't take those offers because they were trying to force Apple into a larger breach.

Why did they risk it? Because they knew there was nothing of value on the phone. If this was the criminal's only phone we might hypothesize that it has valuable info on it. But when the criminal destroyed one phone and didn't bother to destroy the other it suggests there's nothing on it.

I'm sure it has more than zero data. The FBI merely has to claim that knowing if criminals play Candy Crush is helpful to justify it, in one sense. But enough to justify the trouble they put Apple through? Doubtful.

Enough to justify the decades of distrust they sowed in the security community? Not a chance.