2x was always a bait and switch.. bait the community with a chance of 2x by getting the community to naively accept segwit first using the bait of segwit2x.. then switch back to trying to get people to hate the 2x part.. even though the community only accepted segwit recently due to the agreement of the 2x being part of the deal
But the Segwit2x agreement didn't involve users/the community. It just involved a bunch of VC-backed companies, many who have business models that are threatened by transaction fees replacing block subsidy. They'd prefer to increase the costs to run nodes and enter the mining sector -- due to propagation/bandwidth costs -- in order to reduce transactions costs. That way, transaction fees won't eat up all of their revenue.
Now, I'm sympathetic to that from their business perspective, but not to the point where it should affect my money. They should adapt to Bitcoin, not the other way around.
if the community was so strongly desiring just segwit it would have activated by christmas2016.. rather than lingering at 25-30%
That wasn't up to the community. Only miners had any say at that point.
What might help is if people stopped putting this bizarre invisible barrier between miners and "the community". Why aren't miners part of the community? Why are they always this separate entity who supposedly has to follow obediently and silently? It's baffling that most of the people here simultaneously bitch about miners having too much power, whilst in the same breath trying to relegate them to slave status. Everyone wants to rely on their hashpower, but no one wants them to have any freedom. It's unrealistic.
I think, if we're genuinely going to be a community, we need to drop this ridiculous "us and them" mentality. Whatever happens after the November fork, there has to be more cohesion and cooperation between the various network participants, because the silly games we're playing at the moment (where every single disagreement is automatically the fault of miners despite it taking two to sides to have a disagreement), clearly don't work. If we don't find some sort of equilibrium, it's just going to be fork after fork for the foreseeable future.
If you don't want the miners to be your enemy, it might be an idea to stop treating them like one.