So Pike and Raevon -among others- were not just trying to perpetrate highway robbery on IRC but actually entering the "business" of providing escrow services to assist in the robbery. Well, well, welll... it is good that we wont ever again try to sell the "good guys" image... Now, about those 200k VRC Nosker rushed to Mintpal when the 8 million were robbed... what was again the purpose? Ah yes you told me it was to controll all buys... sounds legit.
Precisely, that was the case and no other way could the event interpreted by any investors who just logged in and joined the conversation, like my friend did it by visiting the channel to see if there's any new info about DEV4. As EffectsToCause admitted already, he had assigned an admin role to Reavon to present him as a trusted escrow by saying "Reavon is legit" (at 21:39 UK time), and then the rip-off deal was on its way.
One of the most shocking elements in this event is the arrogance of EffectsToCause, how he reacted to the few poor buggers that pointed out this is a rip-off and asked please stop it: he kicked-off the complaining users from the IRC channel instead of apologizing and make clear that it was a joke ... but suddenly the explanation is, that the escrow deal was an innocent joke.
I think you are right, the "good guys" image is not applicable any more.