You are trying to shift the blame to the users vs. the guy who purposefully weakened his encryption service to make it easier for end users, and also antagonized the government thus harming more users than if he wouldn't have done so. You are blaming the wrong group of people.
If you want 'ease of use' and 'bullet proof encryption' you will have to leave empty handed. Even a noob like me knows that, it's always a trade off.
So, Levinson is wrong for doing what he did, his users are wrong for believing his claims. I note that Moxie Marlinspike's critique of Lavabit was written post-takedown, it is not proven in my opinion that Levinson acted maliciously, though it is very well possible that this is the case. Even if he was only negligent there is plenty of blame for him, and by the looks of it that's hitting home hard enough for what he has done and then some.
That still does not relieve his users from their own responsibility for their part in all this. Giving data that you wish to keep from the government to a service that you are not qualified to audit and that you did not pay some service that is qualified to audit is simply dumb. No matter what the guarantees such a service is making.
Consider for instance that such a service could be set up as a front or a honeypot.
I'm sure that in your book every claim made in advertising ever was always true but I'm a bit more cynical than that.
A better argument to make is to blame the guy who acted extremely stupidly and turned over the emails of every account on his service, when he could have only exposed one.
Yes; my argument is also that Levison started with a bad hand, and then went all in with his users accounts as collateral in what was, essentially, a ludicrous bluff.
