But…… we aren’t talking about the tiny minority that know it’s a potential issue.
Instead, we are talking about the masses that don’t realise that G works that way – and lets face it, even many in the various industries didn’t realise it.

This means;
1) A serious lack of awareness to that specific risk
2) A massive lack of resources on how to evaluate the domain for that risk
3) A general lack of understanding on what to do if the risk is there.

To worsen matters – there is no fool proof vetting process.
There are many domains with masked registration details.
The sites aren’t in the archives or cached anywhere.
etc. etc. etc.
So even if some people do go look, they may turn up blanks.

As for the sudden burn … it’s not sudden for some of us
For many others, it may well be the poor handling of the situation. Though G haven’t exactly “hidden” this, they haven’t made it a major warning. Where in the FAQs is it? Where in the Guidelines is it covered? (And lets not forget how few even know of them, let alone read them!)

S owhat we have is the possibility of a site-wide negative affect that may impact rankings (and thus traffic/earnings), and little warning about it.

It doesn’t even fall under the “common sense” or “logic” areas, as again, most peopel didn’t realise G worked that way.

So though your points are solid, and your analogy fantastic …
… it doesn’t quite stick.
What you described was common sense and established.
What we are looking at here is far less established.