I think the reputation of DPOS, both good and bad, is earned.
This whole situation is interesting. And it does kind of prove, or at least indicate, that the idea that "This will probably not happen again" is ill founded. It also goes to show that people tend to be the same and that power seems to easily corrupt supposedly benevolent rulers.
There's good reputation for DPOS?!?!?!
Well, this situation has kind of shown some good. A single actor was able to take temporary control of the chain, but was eventually neutralized by the community at large.
A fork was created and the community was given an option.
I think those are both some good things about DPOS. I don't know if they outweigh the bad, but they're good.
Ultimately, when you look at how things turned out, all is right with the world. Nobody had Steem taken (other than maybe perhaps opportunity loss).
But that has nothing to do with DPoS...
You're talking about how blockchains can fork, that's not DPoS. Delegating Proof of Stake is only the act of voting on someone ON-CHAIN to decide consensus for you. That failed hard. If you're trying to say that Hive as a fork was a success, then you're talking about an off-chain solution being a success.
All I have seen from this mess is that DPoS is a complete failure and any blockchain using it is not sufficiently decentralized to be secure. Not to mention, with the resent lawsuit against EOS alleging that EOS is not sufficiently decentralized enough, it appears the government might soon rule that DPoS is not decentralized.