For a slow black and white film, I consider a frozen roll dated somewhere within the current calendar year to be nearly as good as unexpired.
That's not to say that I wouldn't buy fresh film for something important-just as I did this past weekend despite having made an effort to move a bunch of 2024-expired film to the front of the freezer to remind me to shoot it-but really I wouldn't expect an issue.
I have also never first-hand experienced the backing paper problems other than on film so old that shooting it was more an experiment than anything , but that's also with full disclosure that I took a bit of a hiatus from photography in general and didn't buy any film from about 2010-201t5 and I think that was peak time for the issue from what I remember reading.
As a side note, though, as much as I want to support my local guys, sometimes its hard when it comes to film. I relocated a few years ago(I REALLY need to update my location...) and am still getting to know the local camera store. They do cold store all their color film, but B&W is out. I was in there a few weeks ago and bought a box of Tri-X. I just needed the film(and I've already shot most of it so this is a moot point) and didn't look at the expiration, but noticed later it was 1/2025. The store I dealt with back in Kentucky would have probably called that short dated and charged me 75% regular price for it.
Since then I've made a big order with B&H, something I do a few times a year(although it's a little alarming what the cost of a ~50 roll order of film is these days, even though this was mostly 120 and mostly B&W and C-41) and the Tri-X I ordered is late 2026/early 2027 expiration. That's a lot more comfortable for me.
OT but I like your latter sentence
Like local auction site guy that found film somewhere in an old drawer and people still pay fresh prices. I literally have put my hands on the head seeing the 2015-20 Kodak 120 being sold that way, knowing or not knowing it was the period when they were prone to backing paper issues.
A couple of years ago, I was cleaning out my car and a 5 roll(120) box of Provia 100F slid out from under the seat. It had expired in 2018 and I know I bought it fresh, but I have no idea how long it had been in there.
I put it up on Ebay, $9.99 starting bid, with full disclosure of what had happened, just saying I knew it had spent some 100º summers and some 0º winters there, but didn't know how many. I said I guaranteed the film to NOT function as expected, but that I could not guarantee what the results would be.
I had a few people message me saying I'd given them a good laugh and that it was one of the most honest Ebay descriptions they'd ever read, but in the end the box sold for something like $40. At the time it was around $70/box at B&H and was usually in stock.