The network has always been secured by decentralization and game theory, not a lack of software or technical inability to seize funds.

Yes, and as far as I see it decentralisation and game theory did not prevent the seizure of funds. As such Delegated Proof of Stake itself has been proven a failure.

The blockchain gurus who where critical of Proof of Stake and said that Prove of Work is the only way had been right.

Not granting tokens in a newly…

I said “Morals aside”. Purely from technical point it was the same operation.

Hive was not created as an empty chain and then accounts got airdropped. Hive was hard forked from an existed blockchain with all previous operation intact.

For a short time those blacklisted accounts had their hive tokens airdropped and then those token where taken away with the very first block produced the hive witnesses.

Morally one can argue that is was an “exclusion” but technically it was a confiscation which can be repeated with every future first block of every future hard fork.

As Steem demonstrated by presumably using the very same code to do such a confiscation.

This is much bigger than Hive vs Steem. The underlying principles of Delegated Proof of Stake need to be questioned.

You mentioned game theory which is all about self interest vs common good and short vs long term gain. As well as forgiveness vs punishment of bad actors.

And the latter is a quite interesting part of game theory: A game with overly harsh punishment for bad actors fails and fast as cooperation dissolves.

Forgiveness is an important part of game theory and both chains failed on that one.