In retrospect, I should have known that it is practically impossible for one witness to speak of other witnesses. Thus, the answers could not be definite and had to be general.

Perhaps I am being cynical, but it seems to me that they tend to deploy that rationale strategically to avoid being pinned down. Somebody asks one of them "Are you willing to pledge to not freeze funds?" and they say something like "Given the vagaries of the blockchain, who can say what code anyone will run?" rather than something like "I can only speak for myself, but I will pledge not to run code that singles out particular accounts to freeze funds".

And perhaps this is cynical as well, but I'm also dubious of "let the SPS decide" as a meaningful solution to anything since, like with witness voting, a few huge accounts can dominate that vote if they are so inclined.