Dear Khan!
Its very sorry to read that you have been treated thus by the ECO.
They do refuse cases by such narrow observations. You should have provided more documents with your visa application like letters from
your MBA University head, annaul/semester/trimester exams score cards etc..
Have you tried your option of review of the ECO's decision with these additional documents or any other such documents that substantiates that your degree is indeed genuine. Check up on this, I think you can ask for 1 review with these additional documents in addition to appealing against the ECO's decision in the available time.
Appeal decision may take upto 1 year, so I would suggest you try to convince the visa officer though the review option itself.
As far as the validity of the HSMP letter is concerned,
Even in the new HSMP guidelines, there is this section which deals with the provision of requesting for a duplicate (reprint) copy of the HSMP letter. The reprint can be requested either if you have not received the original HSMP letter even after many days of posting of the same to you. The second case in which a reprint can be requested is when the HSMP letter has expired while waiting for the decision of the appeal. In this case the new rules clearly mentions that the applicant can obtain a duplicate copy (reprint) of the letter with fresh dates by submitting the old original hsmp letter and a copy of the decision-letter of the appeal (as the reason for the appeal). There is no fees involved for this and the reprint letter is provided after the HSMP office has verified that your appeal decision letter is genuine. This normally takes around 40-60 days.
You can read the questions that were asked to me in my post on Interview Questions :
http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=14022
Wishing you best of luck!
Regards
PPra
), i must tell you.