I think you are right about the possibility to test a hard fork using a copy of the transactions coming through your witness node upgraded for the test net at 0.20.0 or whatever the version was at the moment.

I didn't want to bring that up, but most witnesses didn't do much testing, if at all, with a few exceptions.

That is one of your jobs as witness, so I am reliably informed.

I am not a witness nor do I wish to become one. I am merely a user-investor who tries to act responsibly.

That's a lot of trust to break. It's been broken. We'll see if anything like it can be reestablished.

Trust is... personal. Some will lose it, some won't. And for others, trust will rebuild in time. But to be honest, my personal take on this, is that I haven't lost much trust, not in Steemit Inc. nor in witnesses (consensus or not) for this event. They do need to be more careful in the future.