I'm not technically astute enough to weigh the details but the whole creation of ETC effectively as an accidental side effect of the DAO hack

You are mistaking a bailout hardfork with the event that originated it. We can say ETC is just a side effect of dinosaurs being extinct, how far do you want to go?

just smells very bad

I would say the same about the conflict of interest displayed by the EF, and don't get me started on the whole ordeal with RHG aka EF.

totally agree that the prime issue is non-technical...the community is fractured and consensus is a human problem not a technical one (just like the bitcoin block size issue).

That's why the machine code has to be impartial. Otherwise I have a new coin for you: The Votecoin. The Votecoin (TV) is composed of a single central server where people can log in and vote on the state of the blockchain. How awesome is that? We can have consensus without wasting electricity on number-crunching.

The crypto-currency and blockchain worlds are complicated enough the DAO hack and the resulting ETC creation are not good things.

No doubt the DAO hack was bad, but the silver lining is that we got to see we shouldn't trust a central authority with as much power as we've given the EF. On whose point of view ETC creation was not a good thing?

Of course the whole issue of the immutability of the chain is a real issue and I suspect is the philosophy behind sticking with the old-chain (classic).

No doubt, Sherlock. That was the whole point...

It's certainly a mess and I tend to think that ETC should just go away.

I tend to think you shouldn't be here.