In my opinion SEC should work to stop fake or scam projects as soon as they come up and to initiate criminal proceedings against people behind such projects.
AFAIK, they only step up once the project has scammed already, so we might say that they are late. What they do is just file criminal charges, but if the people behind the project goes underground, hard to catch those criminals then.
As for as decentralized quality coins and projects are concerned they should be encouraged to innovate and help the world achieve the positive outcomes of the technology.
The are governing body, I don't think they are a good source of encourage to innovate because their duty to hunt down those circumventing their rules. But as I have said, criminals is always two step of the game.