I understand what your saying, but I think you may be confusing the act of stealing with what the law says about it, whether that law is traditional law, or the "law of code". If you take something from someone and that person did not give you permission, that it stealing. That definition is independent of law. The act of stealing predates any code of laws. Even if you go as far back as the old testament, the statement said "thou shall not steal". The act of stealing was recognized before any laws or police did anything about it.

My point is this. What happened with the DAO was stealing, but it was not illegal within the context of "The Code is The Law" viewpoint. We are so used to thinking of stealing as being illegal, that we tend to lump the two together. It is conceivable that we could have a society that chooses not to make stealing illegal. That is one of the radical consequences that you may be referring to above.