Ethically I agree it was justified, but strategically it was outright stupid.
There is not a precedence for this in any fork of any chain to my knowledge. It was vile, small minded and vindictive in my opinion. It reminds me of the same mindset behind all the US sanctions around the world.
It is also pretty much unprecedented that a new fork would not have any big difference in the code. Stealing Moving STINC's stake to the SPS budget seemed more administrative to me. The 30 day cool off period for using new stake in witness voting seemed more of a breathing space to allow the witnesses to @null fuck any other big investors should they be foolish enough to invest in Hive.
