Consider this: If instead of hard forking, the same folks get together and create a new coin called Paycoin Redux (PAX). They do an ICO in which any holder of XPY can obtain equivalent value pro rata percentage of PAX coin by exhanging their XPY for PAX; except Josh and any person or entity that can be identified with Josh as an affiliate or family member is banned from ICO participation. The XPY exchanged is destroyed. The result of this would be exactly the same as a hard fork, but you cannot possibly claim anything morally, ethically or legally wrong with that.
This I completely agree with. The issue with forking out addresses on the same coin, without regard for if it can be legally enforced as theft or anything else, sets up a bad idea within crypto-currency as a technology. Imagine if the governments had said "fork out all silk-road coins" and "fork out all mt-gox coins"... then they decide to regulate coins so that to launch a coin you need to be able to put a freeze on any address at the drop of a hat if the court orders it.
It is much cleaner to make a new coin and throw up an exchange where any coin that's over (days-since-announcement-of-new-coin) can exchange 1:1 into the new coin. That means all staked coins die in their original chain and only those holding coins at the point of the announcement can exchange, so no arbitrage crap.