One argument that I hadn't considered was the whale that could wave his stake around and hijack a tribe if they so pleased.

I can't believe this. Hijack? With 400 tokens?
I heard mentioning this nonsence several times, from other ppl too.
AZ purchased 400 POB and it already made a noticeable spike in price.
One funny dude weeks ago tried to buy smth like 2000 POB, and it cleared the whole supply completely. Price went up 6x in a minute, up to 10 HIVE.

I am REGUALLRY buying POB on open market, every day purchasing between 500 and 1500 new POB tokens. I'm doing this for maybe 6-7 weeks now, EVERY SINGLE DAY, and yet I'm at <50% from tribe founder's stake.
That means I am still far far away from the levels, which would empower me to hijack this tribe.
(Not that I have any desire to do it)

I think this particular "MUTE" action was executed in the worst possible way - wrong reasoning, wrong justification, wrong timing. It made to this tribe a lot more BAD than GOOD.