Yes, of course (again!) you (LvW) can ask.
I would not expect to agree with you. It's not intended as a criticism, but a difference between our approaches, since your knowledge of these things is MUCH greater than mine. Whereas you can, and often do, use exact equations to analyse circuits, I as an amateur in these things am accustomed to rules of thumb and rough and ready calculations.
As I said, I saw this question as asking for a simple analysis, then an appreciation of the factors that a more detailed calculation by Spice can take into account.
The second "of course" about departing from your point 2, is really the same. You see his answer and start applying much more careful analysis to try to get closer to the Spice model result. I just thought, yes, he's used a fair approximation and got an answer which is near enough.
I don't depart from your analysis, I depart because I wouldn't have bothered to do it.
So I'm not saying your analysis is wrong. On the contrary I am interested to follow your working (sometime I might want to do more thorough analyses) and you have not said anything I would disagree with. Indeed I was struck by the low value you showed for re of ≈ 4.7 R, because even if I'd made a correction for this, I'd have guessed (see why we differ!) a rather higher value (and been v.wrong!) So
LvW said:
Are you aware that - for a Dc current Ic=1mA - the term you propose to neglect would be app. 50% of the effective feedback resistor?
* absolutely yes! At least, I am now you've reminded me.
Since the figure I would have guessed for re would have been that size, I can't see why it didn't strike me as worth worrying about at the time. I can only say that I was trying to get a rough idea of what was going on, and when the result came out near enough (for my poor standards) to what was wanted, I didn't bother to think about any more careful work.
*(Though, just as I might have done, you've taken a different value of standing current (1 mA instead of the 5.5 mA used in the cct) just to emphasise your point! And there would be an interesting conversation to have about the variation of gain with emitter current and how it affects the stage gain, if only I dared enter into such a discussion.)
So I apologise if I offended you.
My comment was just a light-hearted, flippant allusion to our past disagreement (on models vs reality), which has always detered me from joining any further discussions where you are posting.
I only risked it this time, because I thought your point 1 was relevant and well made. I should have stuck at that and maybe just given your post a like.