Scam is definitely a strong term to use here as I don't believe the intent is to screw over investors. I completely understand if the intent is to make something completely different and they're using the Bitshares repo as a starting point - which at this point is most likely. I don't believe Dan Larimer's intent would be to cut and run with something after being in the space this long.
These conversations are exactly why I posted this though, to get some feedback and discussion going, because it definitely seems like people are under the wrong impression...and at first glance it seemed odd to me. However, as a developer I completely understand using the boilerplate of Bitshares to get started.