Your list of minuses for forking is actually a list of pluses. It's actually the fear that a problem like this could not be reversed that was undermining the credibility of Ethereum and the DAO. Demonstrating that the community has the organizational will to deal with these exploits by consensus will remove a significant amount of fear and uncertainty. This idea that people are concerned that Ethereum isn't decentralized enough and this is limiting adoption just doesn't seem to be real to me.

The idea that the platform will gain more real world credibility if a theft like this is permitted to stand by the community is, in my opinion, comical.