Second, the decision burned up developers' political influence. A handful of developers used their deservedly high community respect to force a decision on the 0.8 miners. So be it. But the next emergency will see developer influence greatly reduced in consequence.
Read the chat logs before speaking about topics of which you know little.
The miners were not "forced" to do anything. They could have chosen to stay on the 0.8 side of the fork.
Each miner (really, pool operator) votes with their collective hash power, deciding whether or not to support a mining-related decision like this.