The Vertcoin devs drew a distinction between "full anon" transactions and "privacy". Their recently released stealth address implementation is testament to that stance. Privacy is an aspect that should not be frowned upon and dismissed as catering only to evil do-ers.

I agree 100% that transaction privacy is important and i most certainly dont frown upon or associate it with anything evil in the sense. It may however be a bane to larger investment institution which naut is currently trying to cater for as well as everyday people. With regulatory issues down the track not being clear it may not be wise to implement such a feature that would cut out a lot of money entering the coin ( thats my view on it neway ).
BK will know a lot cuz his Investment company is obviously currently complying with this regulatory maze of hoops you have to jump through so he may be able to shed some light on the subject.