Maybe what I think is an oversimplification of reality, but here's how I explain this reasoning:  There's a perception, perhaps flawed, that what determines the consensus is dormant wallet holders.  This is not entirely flawed, because large holders do move the market value of bitcoin by selling the forks for bitcoin, and thus, play key role by being in the position to determine which fork remains the most valuable.  Certainly they are not the only entities that determine that, because their coins are valued that much, because people want it, and they want it, because it fits their definition of what's the "correct bitcoin" in the free market.  For example, if a few large holders gathered, all holding more than 10 million coins, and decided to introduce censorship on the protocol rules, that wouldn't pass because the demand for coins in a pro-censorship network would likely go down.  (And thus, would likely lose as "economic majority" by selling their bitcoin for their fork.)

I think there's a similar case with Satoshi-era coins and this dilemma.  People with dormant wallets might want to silently remove Satoshi-era coins from circulation, because they try to justify to themselves that those coins are lost, as they have a big conflict of interest.  On the other hand, I'm not sure how good idea it is to them, if many bitcoiners consider it a violation to first principles.  I think this issue requires a lot more discussion.