your opinion if perfectly valid, the steem launch was a dud ... is that something smooth needs to take responsibility for? I think he might agree the steem launch was less than ideal, but he can still participate, nothing in crypto is even close to ideal these days

Either you have fair and wide distribution or you don't. But I say ethics has nothing to do with it. Choose which forms of distribution you think make the most sense business wise. Ethics just drags us in the arbitrary mud slinging.