Could pebble2 launch with a minimal set of apps, asking the old Devs to push their binaries again? Sure, and with that in mind, all this deal with rebble does is save everyone time.

The way this reads, is a group of enthusiasts got together to create a lifeboat for people who wanted to keep their pebble devices alive... But are now building a moat around said life raft.

If they truly cared about the devices, the users, and the developers.. they would just drop this attitude and move forward.

Another interpretation is that for rebble the worst thing that could happen, was Eric coming back and restarting pebble.