Serious question:

What's the point of the mtgox data dump, and even looking into it?

It only means we get a glimpse into their *internal* accounting... how does that tell us anything that we don't know already.

Possible that I'm missing something though, so please correct me if I didn't think this through enough...

The "bitcoin community" is haunted by zombies -- people and entities that should have been expelled and forgotten long ago but are still walking around doing damage.   Mark Karpeles and the Shrem Karpeles & Friends Foundation are the two egregious examples.  (The former founder of Brazil's  BitcoinRain is our local example here.)

It seems that being "a respected member of the bitcoin community" is more like a nobility title than a job.  Once you become one, you remain one for life, no matter what mess and damage you do.

Two-bit idiot accused two members of the Board of having had privileged access of some sort at MtGOX.  Now he says that he is backing down because the community closed ranks around those people, and because he does not want to give ammunition to "bitcoin's formibdable enemies".   Can't he see that by doing so he is doing just that? 

MtGOX could be dismissed as a scam by done by a single-person, it the community had been quick to disown him as soon as his management of the exchange became suspicious and harmful to his clients. Instead we saw many "respected members of the community" support him.

See for instance Roger Ver's emphatically vouching for the solvency of MtGOX, when he must have been conscious that he had not enough evidence of it.  Was he motivated by his friendship to Mark, or by his belief that preserving the image of MtGOX was important to preserve the public image of bitcoin?  Either way, he apparently thought that such  motive was more improtant than preventing investors from putting their money and bitcoins into a dubious business.   In the end, his testimonial only hurt the image of bitcoin even more:  "Is there anyone in that community that we can trust?"

The about-face of the Two-Bit Idiot seem to be another instance of that mentality, and to me has the same effect as Ver's testimonial...

High-speed telecommunications provider Perseus Telecom and digital currency trading platform Atlas ATS formally launched Wednesday a globally integrated bitcoin exchange system in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore to facilitate trading in the digital currency by high-frequency trading firms and other large financial institutions.

The two firms' collaboration, first reported last month by The Wall Street Journal, marks a milestone in the evolution of bitcoin out of a retail-oriented, loosely regulated low-tech environment...

The rapper Nas brought it up during a panel discussion that featured the venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a firm that has invested about $50 million in Bitcoin-related start-ups. Mr. Horowitz said he believed Bitcoin was like “the Internet of money.”
At one of the most exclusive parties at the conference, hosted by Nas and Mr. Horowitz, the two kibitzed with Fred Ehrsam, the chief executive of Coinbase, a Bitcoin company they have both recently invested in.

In that recent interview, Huobi's CEO said that they have 20 people on customer assistance.

I see that their phone numbers have a '4000' prefix.  Could that be paid service in China?  Could that be how they make money? 

400 toll-free numbers with prefix "4001" are international toll-free numbers which can be routed to destination numbers inside or outside of China. 400 toll-free numbers with prefix "4000", "4006", "4007" or "4008" are national toll-free numbers which can be routed to China destination numbers only.

cowboy boots and underwear at Overstock.com

Based on their observations that the months of May, June and September show no earnings the authors conclude that it was likely that the Dread Pirate Roberts was using a different computer than the one seized by the FBI to store bitcoins earned from the Silk Road during these months.

The authors also note that based on estimates that the Silk Road marketplace generated sales revenue of more than 9.5m BTC with an average commission rate of 6.67%, that the Dread Pirate Roberts earned a total of approximately 633,000 BTC, or only one-third of the bitcoins identified by Ron and Shamir in Table 1.

In other words, the FBI only seized 22% of Dread Pirate Roberts’ total bitcoin holdings.

I have written several times what is my opinion of bitcoin. Please read it (you may be even more disappointed then).

No, I have no interest in sociological research on the bitcoin community. 

And yes, I have a PhD in computer science, that I got by asking stupid questions.

WTF guys, a legit 2k wall appeared at $630 and no one comments?

This is the first time in a long while (relatively) that $600 had more bid support than there was resistance to $700.

OK can a Canadian tell me where do I find this free money you talk about in Canada?

Except Ripple. 

What are your points of contention regarding the problematic nature of BTC e, if any?    Are they NOT transparent enough?  Are they engaged in fractional banking?  What's going on?

I know that I have heard some anecdotal stories of people losing their BTC... on BTC e, also.  However, I question whether those are just made up or exaggerated stories.  I remember one guy had provided me a link to a story.. but in my view, the story did NOT pan out b/c the person was merely sending out negative stories before there was even an issue of a problem.   Surely, it is possible, and maybe I should withdraw some of my BTC from there.. I have about 15 BTC (about 40% of my holdings) on BTCe.

The first part of your theme seems possible........... but likely NOT complete b/c in my thinking it would take considerable time for 750k btc to be absorbed completely into the market.  The second alternative seems even less possible b/c it seems very unlikely (though possible) that the stealing would have ONLY been by one thief.