Exchanges will validate this. All least those which are centralized and strictly for-business. They don't care about things like freedom and community and decentralization unless these can be spelled-out in dollars.
It's the money that makes their world go round, not the ethics, empathy and basic human values.
By the way, this was expected. The only reason why it didn't happen sooner is because their devs had to learn the trade of coding the hardfork first. It will be interesting to see how successful will they be. Will the chain be down for a longer period of time? Will there be any quick fixes? With such minor changes there shouldn't be any. yet ...
I tend to agree with you about how exchanges will react, but still, let's wait and see. As for the level of skill of those coding this hardfork, I tend to go even further than you: they don't know yet what they're doing.