That guy at the print swap who swore by expired emulsion

Honestly, I went to a local DIY print meetup in Portland last month and this one dude, maybe 60, was showing off these super crisp posters he made with emulsion that was 2 years past its date. I told him he was lucky, not skilled, and he just laughed and said I was wasting money on fresh stuff when the old stuff actually holds finer detail if you adjust your exposure time. He pulled out a test strip he did that morning and showed me the difference side by side, and I gotta admit, his lines were way sharper than anything I've gotten with my new bottle. I tried it at home with my expired jar from my basement, did a 45 second burn instead of my usual 30, and it worked better than anything fresh. Ngl, I think the whole "use it or toss it" thing is just a marketing push, but I'm still scared to fully commit because one bad screen wastes a lot of mesh. Has anyone else messed with old emulsion and gotten better results, or was this dude just a one-off freak?