This question is asking us to speak on behalf of the witnesses. I'm not in a position to do that. However, since I started looking into it when all this happened, it seems clear that the ninja mined Steem has been a n issue and witnesses have been discussing an ethical way to deal with it but since Ned wasn't using it for governance it wasn't as pressing of an issue as it has become in the past couple of weeks. Obviously that was something of a mistake, but I don't think you're taking into account that our witnesses aren't paid representatives and some/many/most (?) are devs working on other projects for Steem. This really strikes me as a legit "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" scenario and now we've reached the bridge. Could it have been foreseen that it would be on fire when we got here? Maybe, but I’m not keen on lashing the team for giving Ned the benefit of the doubt even though in hindsight that was not the best move.