I was never much sympathetic to the people who got Goxed, because it was their damnfool fault for storing coins on a centralized exchange. Even though "not your keys, not your coins" was not yet a meme being stapled to the forehead of every n00b, it was damn obvious from 3-Jan-2009. Storing money in the custody of a trusted party, who may turn out to be incompetent or malicious - wasn't Bitcoin invented so we could stop doing that?
as i recall peeps at that time when it was obvious they were having problems some folks were deliberately buying coins on mtgox at a discount (they were cheap due to loss on confidence of them being able to withdraw) to try and move to another exchange or their own wallets because of the arbitrage opportunity.
i believe some managed it and got a bit of profit however we all know what happened to the unlucky ones.
It's been so long, but wasn't there a website were you could even trade coins trapped in GOX after they started to shut down?