[Avodah] Talmudic Rabbis Expectations

[Rich, Joel]

http://www.thejewishweek.com/special_sections/text_context/shadow_destruction

"The mechanics of compiling, editing and transmitting an oral text like the Talmud are still in the process of being sorted out, but already one cannot help but marvel at the optimism of the Talmudic rabbis who handed this encyclopedic text to their students in the hope and expectation that the next generation of rabbis would do the same"

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I've always wondered about this (forgetting about for now the trend at the time to written works etc.),  did the Talmudic Rabbis prior to Rebbi have an expectation that their talmidim would master the entire corpus of what had been said prior to their time?  What about prior to Ravina ands Rav Ashi?  or was there an expectation that only "major themes and opinions" (TBD) would be preserved (e.g. do we think that every position of every tanna on every subject was preserved?)

GCT
Joel Rich
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