Remember - the communities were the ones that managed the channels, not Freenode. Especially single-# channels that weren't grandfathered were subject to a policy that ruled that official project had priority for names reflecting it.

And now "freenode" effectively hijacked established community centers, changed the locks, sometimes for the very "crime" of discussing whether to move... or stay. A lot took a wait&see approach, some were more decisive and used channel flags to prevent people getting lost, thinking they got official org channel while arriving in a dead one full of lurkers that forgot to kill a ZNC somewhere.