over the course of a year or so, using a moderately large cluster of equipment, after he had explained the entire concept of what he was trying to accomplish to thousands of people on the cryptography mailing list a month or so in advance and invited them to participate (and others were certainly mining otherwise he wouldn't need that cluster, just a laptop)

That's exactly the same as mining a million coins in a few hours after an ambush launch releasing buggy code in the middle of the night with no mention of any development goals until after the instamine was over.

Well its the same if you are a DRKtard. To everyone else it is not even remotely the same.

I do feel bad for a few people I can think of who have gotten caught up in what they feel is a legitimate project.