A little note to my compadres on the 'keep it lite, tight, and defensible' side of the fence:

We can and should view the 'bloatchain' or 'gavincoin' hard fork effort as simply an attack.  A devilish one given the resources of the attackers, but we always knew that such attacks were inevitable.  We also knew that it would not be easy or fun to deal with them.

If we have confidence in the principles of Bitcoin as a defensible solution, we should not fear this attack, but we also should not discount it of course.  I retain enough confidence in the defensibly of Bitcoin to be inclined to put up a fight.  Nowhere does the concept of 'what does not kill us only makes us stronger' better apply and we should try to welcome the attack for that reason.