I think Vitalik said it best when he realized stake literally has to be nullified on DPOS because coins directly determine governance. If a DPOS chain is under attack or if a contentious governance split happens coins must be nullified on both sides in order to split the communities. Hive changed their distribution as well and I don't see you talking about that "theft" much.

When a POW coin forks it isn't the stake that matters; it is the hash power.
This is what secures the network. With DPOS stake directly secures the network.

The fact of the matter is that users who had their balances nullified (on both sides) need to accept their "losses". The users on Steem that got forked out on HF23 have still netted an extremely positive gain regardless of the frozen/siphoned accounts.

To pose this question of "Well, what if there wasn't a fork?" is absurd. What if there was no such thing as blockchain tomorrow? What if pigs could fly? This hypothetical situation does not exist in the realm of possibility. If Hive didn't exist when HF23 rolled around, HF23 would have automatically created Hive. There is no question about it. Now you're asking me what if Hive didn't exist when Hive is the whole reason HF23 exists? Like, I can't take that seriously. Hive CREATED HF23. We should be glad we were able to exit as much as we did because they are incompetent.

If anything, this should be a great example for you about why everyone should hold Bitcoin: because it is the most secure network with the absolute highest chance that none of this bullshit would ever happen there. Bitcoin forks; everyone gets coins.