Business administration was my field for over thirty years.  I'm semi-retired now.  I don't necessarily put faith in the system, but I find it utterly absurd when people won't use the system to their advantage in instances where there are few other options.  

I'm sure Tihan would much rather have avoided receivership and liquidation, but the Bitcoinica drama needs to be brought to an end and pretty much the only remaining practical way do that is via some kind of formal insolvency.

I suspect Roger et al would prefer to avoid litigation and were hoping that filing a lawsuit would bring people to the negotiating table - but I'm sure they're willing to follow through with the lawsuit if that doesn't happen because it's ludicrous to just shrug your shoulders at the loss of over ~$400,000 and not try to recover it.

I also suspect that many of the people who've posted in these threads didn't believe Zhou's explanations for a minute but were willing to play along with the story as long as there was hope of the stolen funds being returned.

I don't believe that users are acting in their own best interests when time and time again they seek no redress against people/entities which have been responsible for substantial losses.  To date, there have been no meaningful consequences for those who've been responsible for losses of user funds - whether through criminal activity or incompetence.  As long as such losses are acceptable to the community and redress is not sought, Bitcoin services will become an increasingly attractive target for scammers and hackers alike, the losses will continue to mount, and that's going to have a very real impact on people's willingness to invest in and adopt Bitcoin.