»I wonder whether the Architect wanted to put doubt in Neo«

..if the Architect was lying to Neo. Is it possible that he was just trying to discourage Neo by saying that he is merely a puppet for the machines? The Architect was probably trying to put doubts in Neo's head. What do you guys think?

Sure: perhaps the whole thing (You are here for the 6th time) is a hoax by the architect. But this would mean that the Matrix is capable of lying, which normal programming would seem - seem - to disallow, i.e. can a computer deliberately lie? Or can it even be programmed to seem to lie?

This goes back to another one of my posts: perhaps the Matrix is a quantum computer, like the human brain, capable of holding all possibilities and even contradictions. We are able to lie because there are "circuits" that allow us to do so. We can hold 2+2=4 in our heads as the truth while deliberately teaching a 5-year old that the answer is 22.

Architect is not the only one talking about an "older Matrix". Smith says it (Matrix 1), Persephone says even "much older Matrix"