[Jabanga]

I'm part of the Ethereum community and I think immutability is vital for its success (immutability is the core value proposition of public blockchains). I also think the DAO was early enough in Ethereum's life that it could be hard forked without seriously discrediting Ethereum's promise of immutability.

There's a huge difference between a blockchain that just started out, effectively in its beta release and learning the ropes, doing a hard fork under extraordinary circumstances, and a mature blockchain doing a hard fork to reverse any old major Dapp hack.

If Ethereum does hard forks to reverse hacks of third party applications at a mature phase of its life, I think its chances of succeeding and becoming the main platform for global asset management will diminish significantly. On the contrary, if Ethereum stays true to its principles, and becomes reliably immutable, even in the face of major hacks, I believe there is very little that can stop it from becoming the defacto protocol for global commerce. So I think being overly pragmatic is actually dangerous. Idealism is what sets principles, and principles are what give a platform credibility.

Remember, a hack of a third party application, no matter how major, cannot seriously harm Ethereum. A contentious hard fork and a discrediting of its principles can.