Everything you say is true. But a mucked hand cannot be 'rescued' in a casino (I believe this is true..). So I guess in this situation, the question would be, did he muck his hand, or did he table it, and misread it?

Anyway, in our game, we make huge accommodations for things like this (misreading hands), cuz most of the players are not experienced. This is also the reason why we play limit. It minimizes the huge pots that would otherwise turn a friendly game, (tho hyper competitive) into something else...

Cheers,
Todd