Why TML over BT?
TML's interactions with absta aren't great, as other people have pointed out. He briefly voted for absta, but quickly found an alternate wagon he preferred, which could easily be distancing. And the fact he forgot all about his absta suspicions when the day came to a close and people were looking for alternatives to Zdenek and ActionDan, in particular, seems quite odd.
TML being Police would also help to explain the Shadoweh death, arguably. She definitely suspected him on day 1, and only moved off him to vote for absta. Killing somebody fairly inactive just because they suspected one of the scum seems a bit weak. But somebody who was suspicious of
two
of the scum-team is a much more appealing NK target.
I also don't like the way TML gave up on his petapan=scum meta case. He seems pretty confident of it in
439 and in later posts (like
667). True, at the end of day 1 he was "willing to let Dan live a night", but he seemed set to come back to this again the next day. And in fact he still seemed suspicious of Dan at the start of Day 2, in
1035.
The fact that, rather than pursuing this read, he instead drops all his suspicions, and actually quickly lists petapan's slot as a town-read, seems to have far more to do with wanting to avoid a fight with kuribo than it does with any genuine change of heart. If you believe petapan's meta makes him scum, then kuribo must also be scum. Or, failing that, kuribo must have done something you find very townish. But TML doesn't mention any such thing. He just stops suspecting the slot, without saying why, the instant kuribo replaces in. (I don't think he gets around to explaing
why
he has a town-read on kuribo until
1722, and even then only because Benmage directly challenges him on it.)
~ Pless