The purpose of the fork was to create a blockchain where Justin Sun and his supporters werent present.
If you didnt remove those accounts the fork would be pointless. We could just stay on Steem.
You fork to introduce a change. The change was to create something where these guys werent present. Its really first grade logic. I cant explain it more simply then that.

There were no "hive balances".

1. It was all worth $0
2. Not giving the new token to Justins supporters is the change i wrote above. A chain was started without all these guys because the goal was to have a blockchain without those guys.