So in effect you're saying that a black hole of the most most basic sort--one that was just born and as small as one could be--could not accrete sufficient matter while remaining in a single spot to make up for the energy it was shedding and therefore would burn itself out? That I did not know, nor did I know that it takes a lot of time for them to eat enough to begin exerting pull at any distance.
What I'm hearing is that a black hole needs to be fed in order to survive, and therefore stability would require a steady source of intake relative to the output, which my disaster / eighth wonder of the world / theme park scenario does not allow. Although the nuclear, biological and chemical trash collectors across the world now have a bottomless garbage pit, not to mention all of the conventional waste disposal companies in a large radius, it would not be enough or really regular enough to allow stabilization.
So if I didn't completely misunderstand what you said, Brin's fiction of a singularity sub-orbiting the planet could only cause planetary destruction by slowly gobbling up all of the liquid rock as it zips around, eventually causing the crust to begin to collapse, bit by bit. I'm not saying this would be devastating and probably quite fatal to life on earth... just not quite the dramatic and sudden end envisioned in the book.
I guess the reason Brin had the singularity orbiting is that he learned enough about the science to know the little guy had to move to survive.
[edit] I was ready to move the offending experiment from Atlas to CMS because I couldn't bear the thought of destroying the PSP, but from what you're saying, the singularity wouldn't really do any detectable damage on its way to the center point of the collider because it would still be tres tiny... correct? If that is the case, I can leave it as it is (in my head) and just stick with the fiction of growing the black hole faster and bigger than it could actually grow. Also, only the slowest scientists would be unable to evacuate the Pressin site before the singularity grew large enough to get to them (a period of months in my alternate unreality).
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