> the trust path for a huge chunk of binary data now hinges on a single individual, rather than a corporate entity.
You make it sound like it was a bad thing. It's not.
It is definitely a bad thing from a risk standpoint, no two ways about it. Simply because that person could get hit by a bus, burn out, etc.
I'd trust Canonical for Ubuntu images over a random internet citizen that decided to provide them.
edit: To clarify, the images themselves are quality, and do get generated from Canonical's rootfs tarball, but the trust path for a huge chunk of binary data now hinges on a single individual, rather than a corporate entity.