I agree completely with your sentiments, but must take issue with your proposed solution.

"My thoughts are that we should under no circumstances allow this fork to go live."

We don't have any such power. The exchanges remain powered up, and in possession of the stake requisite to effecting governance of Steem at their sole option - which they have already demonstrated willingness to do.

We are being allowed the appearance of such power by the exchanges, but that is only an illusion. The decentralization of Steem has always only been an illusion, since during Hive account@ned's tenure as CEO of Stinc, he always had the ability to undertake governance of Steem instantly at his sole option. He never did, and that has made the illusion of decentralizaton credible.

That illusion is no longer credible, as it has provably been dispelled.

If the exchanges and Tron execute code that renders their accounts incapable of voting for witnesses, then Steem can become decentralized (to such extent as it has appeared to be in the past, FWIW). Failing that, Steem has become the possession of Tron.

That's all the options there are. Sun has two choices: execute code restricting his accounts, or live with destroying the value of his stake.

We don't have a choice.

Thanks!