I've just caught up with the forum threads and not sure that an average person/investor would have the time to go through all the arguments of the hard fork posted here.

If in any case, they would be reading up the official statements from the Vericoin Developers here:
http://www.vericoin.info/downloads/Statement.pdf

And the official statements from the Mintpal Exchange here:
https://support.mintpal.com/index.php?module=announce&sec=view&id=17

What an average person would probably pick up from this would be:
1. Mintpal's security has been breached and hacked, hence less trust & extra caution to use them in the future
2. Vericoin's developers have stepped up to help protect the coin as well as it's community and investors
3. Rules are made to be broken, and it's up to whether you would prefer Batman (one who breaks rules and steps up to do the right thing) or the Cold Ruthless Law that states that there is nothing that can be done against a theft as it is against all principles of how a crypto should be.

Common sense with the right morals > Cold-hard principles/rules

Just my sharing.