As to it being too hard to fix, I don't know about that. If a marketplace with STEEM (as an example) didn't work out, I'm not sure why they wouldn't be able to re-introduce SBD?

Because it would be much farther along with more competing interests and justifiable reasons to not want to make major changes. That is the nature of these systems as they mature, as you pointed out in your comment above. Keeping an undefined "beta" label on it indefinitely does not resolve that issue.

Not too long ago @bacchist was freaking out

Take that in context along with "sound the alarm!"

That said, what was the debt ratio when that was happening? I suspect a lot higher, in which case freaking out may have been somewhat reasonable. We've learned a lot about how to manage the risks, including taking action well before the debt level reaches the previous high levels (as was not done previously), and I'm convinced now that it is quite manageable. Yes not zero cost or risk as you correctly pointed out, but quite low.