I guess the strategy here is to "out-literal" Lindsey and prove that various predictions haven't happened, etc., as if it was possible they ever could and his biblical analysis was the only real fault.

The reality is that Lindsey didn't care about the details. He was a showman who told fantasy fiction because of the feeling being generated. Evangelicals were thrilled. The rapture made them feel frightened, purposeful, and superior to everyone who didn't have this special (shifting) theological timeline in their mind.

The Rapture acts to relieve one of all responsibility to other people. They are the ones who will burn in the Armageddon or something. The believer in the Rapture just has to sit tight until the End, for Jesus to appear in the clouds and lift them up. It is designed to telegraph sneering indifference to life, and that is how Evangelicals wanted to feel.