Like I said, I don't think mtrlt is RealSolid - try reading what I said before trying to bash it.
Of course he didn't force anyone to donate. But he promised that he would build a GPU miner that would be several times better than a CPU, and people "donated" based on that belief. Calling it a "donation" was a lie by mtrlt as well, because as you said, the "donators" were paying mtrlt in expectation of receiving a profit. Lying about the power of the GPU miner to get people to pay is misrepresenting a product you are selling. Even if you call it a donation, you're still lying to get it. I could say I'm collecting money for the Salvation Army, use that to get donations, then keep it all for myself. Oh, but no one can get their money back because it was a donation! I wonder how well that would hold up in court.
Around here in the Alt Space...
Its often hard to make the distinction between "scam" and "failure".
Many coins/projects are pure scams...
And EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE has mined and pumped a Scam Coin...
Because once you get sucked in and own coins = Stockholm Syndrome...
Otherwise honest people will defend, promote, fellate their kidnappers/scammers.
Then there are projects that fail for technical reasons...
You pretty much have to be an engineer to tell the difference.
In addition, RS endured wave after wave of DDoS attacks that crippled SC...
Like a medieval castle under seige by a 1,000 flaming catapults...
So it all gets really murky what really happened to the wallets...
And whether walking away was RS only option.
2011 is called the Upper Paleolithic period of the Alt Space...
When Alt Miners were indiscriminately interbreeding with Botnet and Spam Lords...
Before the glaciers moved in... resulting in wholesale extinctions.
Darwinian theory asserts that the fittest survived and moved on...
With MCX an example of a particularly brilliant stroke of Genius and Obsession...
I can guarantee you RS would rather be running MCX 18 hrs/day...
Then relaxing on the beach or being an idle rich dude.