diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 98b3d24..053e970 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -258,19 +258,22 @@ A download that sits with no bytes for `MUSE_STALL_MINUTES` is abandoned the
 same way, as is one slskd has forgotten about. Both used to leave the job in
 `downloading` forever, with a cheerful pulsing dot and no log line.
 
-**Not every failure is about the file.** "File not shared" concerns one file and
-the next candidate is unaffected, so the ladder advances immediately. A timeout
-says only that slskd could not talk to anyone just then, and the next candidate
-would fail identically. Walking the whole list to learn that once is waste --
-worse, it is harmful: each enqueue blocks about five seconds on a peer
-connection, so eight back-to-back attempts is forty seconds of pressure on one
-subsystem, and it takes other users' searches down with it. That is not
-hypothetical; it is what a real request did.
+**Unreachable peers are the norm, not the exception.** slskd answers 500 when it
+cannot open a connection to a peer within its five-second window, and on a live
+instance that is common: one request walked four such peers before the fifth
+served it. This is why the ladder is worth having and why `MUSE_MAX_ATTEMPTS`
+defaults to the full `MUSE_CANDIDATES` rather than a smaller number — a cap
+below the ladder size throws away candidates that would have worked.
 
-So attempts are spaced by `MUSE_ATTEMPT_BACKOFF`, and after
-`MUSE_SYSTEMIC_LIMIT` consecutive connection failures muse stops and **keeps the
-untried candidates on the row**. Retrying then resumes the ladder where it
-stopped rather than paying for a search whose answer has not changed.
+Attempts are spaced by `MUSE_ATTEMPT_BACKOFF`. That is politeness rather than a
+fix for anything measured: each enqueue holds a peer connection slot for up to
+five seconds, and there is no reason to ask for eight of them in immediate
+succession. Separately, `MUSE_SYSTEMIC_LIMIT` consecutive *connection* errors —
+meaning slskd itself is unreachable, not a peer — stop the walk and **keep the
+untried candidates on the row**, so retrying resumes the ladder rather than
+paying for a search whose answer has not changed. A 500 is deliberately not
+counted as systemic: it describes one peer, and treating it as systemic would
+have abandoned the request that succeeded on its fifth attempt.
 
 ## Review: when muse isn't sure