This sounds like a lot of conjecture. Those people definitely had a right to be there: they were invited to and accepted board positions, in some cases it was Sam himself who asked them to join.

But an oversight board can be established easier than that it can be disbanded and that's for very good reasons. The only reason that it worked is not because the board made any decisions they shouldn't have made (though that may well be the case) but because they critically misjudged the balance of power. They could and maybe should have made their move, but they could not make it stick.

As for the last line of your comment: I think that explains your motivation of interpreting things creatively but that doesn't make it true.