I can related to the living under a rock part, and woke up also today to the BRO drama. And thank you for writing this post, because I didn't knew about this part:

How do we know how much of the funds were really used to promote Hive? Are we just funding people's passion or hobby? This was finally discussed at a round table in KL this year with a follow up post where the wider community gave their views on the matter.

And it would be great if something good came out of it. From under my rock, it seems that the vast majority (all?) of DHF is a huge contribution to a permanent sell pressure and a big source of distrust; and I won't even get started on what value having a race car brings to the blockchain...

Let's hope for a brighter Hive future ahead!