You raise a pretty interesting question here, well said! If people were able to save all the BTC from Mount Gox back in the day, then the trust in BTC would've probably been much higher and the adoption much faster as well, and that would've probably made it much stronger.
Because that came at a time where BTC was much more vulnerable than now.
However, I can't know this for sure as there were many variables in play.
From a purely practical point of view, I don't understand why people get angry if the users are protected, like the ETH example you just mentioned. At the same time, I understand that everyone has different points of views and preferences.
And like you, I'm happy with the account recovery in steemit :) The more secure the users are, the better!