It's fine to argue that projects delegated to by Ned were all in the spirit of the improving the project, apart from the actual contract terms. Some would disagree, but let's assume that every single project that got delegation from Ned were seen as promoting/funding development.

My point is not that the delegations themselves were the problem. My point is that after HF14, Ned had the opportunity to make the contract formally recognized on-chain. Yet the witnesses instead continued to approve hardfork after hardfork.

HF14 - Ned can formalize the contract on-chain but doesn't.
HF15 - From a consensus perspective, these are bug fixes. Witnesses apparently prefer to hardfork than hold Ned's feet to the fire, which is perhaps understandable due to the bug fixes.
HF16 - Switched to chainbase and change to 13-week powerdown. Witnesses again prefer to hardfork over upholding the contract on-chain.
HF17 - Delegation added. Witnesses again prefer to hardfork over upholding the contract on-chain.

My point is, the opportunity to formalize the terms in HF14 were not enough of a sticking point to witnesses. They instead preferred to move forward, evolve the platform, and in my view, abandon the contract.

The witnesses had the opportunity and could have stopped further hardforks until the contract was adopted on-chain.