Well, wise one - tell us exactly how many devices they recovered and how long it takes to go through every single device - forensically (meaning running full recovery on each) and then checking every single directory and file (a clever person would rename the extension to something innocuous and bury it deep in the file system).
Had they known exactly which hard drive contained the file that they knew they were looking for, you'd be right. But as it stands, you're just showing your "The TPS is completely incompetent" colors, as usual. They were searching for a needle in a haystack, and considering the file was actually deleted and had to be recovered, I'd say they actually did a pretty good job in finding it.
