In an ideal or perfect world, we don't really need regulations because people would be following the principle of fairness and selflessness but we are not in the ideal world and so we need regulations in order to protect ourselves from people who are just waiting to crunch us alive. The only problem is when regulations are set-up not to protect but to also kill or stifle the very thing being regulated.
One area of concern for regulation is accountability. For example, without regulations placed and laws enacted for the matter, an exchange can just closed its business leaving many members holding empty bags because their funds are gone the moment the site is not anymore operating. And because the people behind the site are anonymous members don't know what to do and where to seek help.
I also felt uneasy about regulations but if done right this can be for our own advantage and the whole cryptocurrency movement.
I daresay you are still living in a pipe dream of sorts. People behind Cryptsy are well known but the main villain, Paul Vernon, has managed to escape and still hiding somewhere in Asia, while those who ended up caught in the end got off pretty cheap. It turned out that they in fact successfully pulled off the job and had to return stolen money ($8.2 million in total) to their clients at laughable exchange rates, something like $200 per bitcoin when bitcoin had already been well over $1,000, just short of $2,000 by the end of July, 2017. Would regulation have helped the victims of the scam in any meaningful way?
Apart from that, no amount of regulation will save you from coins theft. But theft in the cryptoverse means almost no chance of getting the stolen coins back. Sorry to sound like a wet blanket here but this is how matters stand in the crypto world. People would still be left holding empty bags.