Our witnesses have proven that a small group of people can and will change the code without a single public conversation.

The conversation couldn't be public, because then it might as well would have been too late. Again, this was a protective & preemptive measure. Also, 60+ people (stakehodlers, including @theycallmedan & @blocktrades) were involved and the decision wasn't taken lightly.

Also, remember that everything is temporary. If enough stakeholders disagree with said move and vote in their own witnesses, then they can easily revert this change. But even if not, again, it is temporary.

Last but not least, let me quote a paragraph of your post, And Just Like That Everything is Different...

Remember Steem is code and the name of the token. There is nothing to say witnesses couldn't continue to run the current code.

If Steemit Inc stake would have been used to vote in their own witnesses & kill of this project, the Steem we know would be gone. We would have to fork and that's included in that. If you don't see exactly that as a threat to our blockchain, Steem ... (note that this is about the Steemit Inc stake, not stake which can be bought over-the-counter)

It's easy to just write posts about "changes are happening", "witnesses can continue to run the code", etc, but making actual decisions while knowing that there are no perfect actions to be done, that's difficult. And I'm proud about the fact, that 60+ people came together and figured this out.

Next up will be conversations with Justin Sun and team to make sure that we're all on the same page.