Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm honestly surprised how people could trust huge amounts of money to projects like Ethereum and The DAO.

The only explanation I could imagine is like: "We could have become rich if we knew that Bitcoin would be a success..now it is too late. But wait, there is a new thing called Ethereum, maybe that is our chance! Let's invest our money!".

I believe your speculation is correct.

The DAO was a great idea but it should have been done at a significantly smaller scale. Raise say $1M worth of tokens and invest in three things and then sunset the project and evaluate the result. Call it an experiment. This was like going from bottle rocket to Saturn V in one step.

Interesting analysis on DAO, the virtual company that apparently thought it could fly but instead fell off a cliff. I like the premised intent of digital currency. All currency is digital (read imaginary) in fact, but the geniuses who headed this up did not realize that security is not just a byword for hacking/privacy concerns. If you stick your wallet out you better make damn sure you don't end up buying everybody's lunch. Personally, they should 'rollback', as long as their is no animosity. Again, all 'currency' is man-made-imaginary. So I say live and learn and keep pushing forward. What do I know though? Maybe these guys can afford to give their money away but that is definitely not agreeable.