Of course not. HBD in the DAO indeed can't be powered up to vote. But as @doze has already assured, I've also seen how these HBD are, has been and are being transferred to "projects" and also converted into Hive to distribute them between the opulents & their parasites to then upvote only among them and to downvote to all those who they don't want they say the things as really are and is not convenient for them that anyone knows.

instead of having been used for their intended purpose?

Yeah! I've already seen many times before what their intended purposes have been.