If we remove stake-based governance from discussion on decentralization we are still left with a copy of the chain on various servers all over the world and also on their backups which are often in other parts of the world. We know that, unrelated to the hostile takeover or any of that, that it is possible to snapshot the chain (as with it being possible to snapshot anything) and it's a ledger of sequence, meaning it's possible to cut the end off. Forking it is also possible and actually encouraged as its an open source project (forks are uncommon and difficult but if done right can be a non-crypto tool for exploration in development). The first thing that happened when I heard that Stinc was selling to JS was message my buddy tell him, be ready to fork. That was months prior to anything happening. The chain itself is now after all the advancements that BT's team has undertaken, particularly OBI, is second to none. It would've never reached this level if it wasn't for adversity.

Your reference to governance in relation to management of the chain is a different aspect of decentralization. With the HBD for instance, the more communication there is the better. There are people here on chain who are experts in financial strategy and its not necessarily the witnesses as our job is to be proficient in providing quality hardware and server management first and foremost. Everyone who has something to say should say it. It would be unwise and frankly stupid to disregard the advice of someone with a well-referenced argument with the weight of their education behind it. That weight is more important than the weight of a wallet and anyone with a large stake knows that financial management is not a joke. The self-censorship due to downvotes can be avoided even on chain; send an encrypted memo for instance if the message is to a specific person or small group. It is a known problem though, I'm not going to deny it, which stems from posts being all about pleasing the voter and if the voter is displeased then something is wrong. It's a challenge that has to be resolved via frontends, not via the protocol, however. This can turn into a long discussion on possible solutions which I don't want to waste your time getting into now.

I personally believe everything I wrote and I'm here and was here because of decentralization and the lack of functional censorship (I consider voting as superficial censorship) as no matter what happens, that information, whatever it is, is on the chain. It's not coming off, even with a chain like Steem with a broken protocol it's not possible to eradicate earlier records. I ran freedom of speech boards and platforms for many years and I closed down and eradicated all the backups when attacks on freedom of speech became the norm, over a decade ago now. I can't eradicate anything here and neither can anyone else as all that happens, as with the takeover, is the chain forks, it doesn't disappear. The entire purpose of centralization is to make truth disappear. Here, good luck.

What we need to improve on is inclusion and communication. No steps are going to be enough as there is no real measure of success. It's just cyclical improvement.