It is now common sense in the ethereum community that the hard fork cannot set a precedence for similar cases because we're still in a relatively early stage in ethereum's life.
This is a rather funny argument. It states that due to certain characteristics of the present situation, there will be no other similar cases in the future where the same arguments apply. Well, any characteristic that could make this case special can make new cases special. It will always be possible to say that we are in an early stage of the ethereum life (after all, Christ would come "soon" and people are still waiting) and there will always be a possibility that another situation is even more special than this one.
The thing is all decisions made in the past regarding justice set a precedence to new decisions. They don't bind the new decisions. They set a precedence simply because in new cases people will look back to this one and recall the arguments used on both sides.
Ethereum community is simply wrong in buying Vitalik's argument on this.
It is also true that even if no hard fork had been done, that wouldn't protect the community against a hard fork. It would only have set a precedence, just like it did. The fact that something has never happened is not a guarantee that it won't. I, for instance, have never died. It would be foolish of me to think that this is any guarantee against death.