I'm disappointed that we started with a single, decentralized chain, and now find ourselves with two centralized ones instead.

The reality is that Steem was never a decentralized chain. It only seemed that way because Steemit, Inc didn't use their stake for voting in the past. The community only controlled the Steem blockchain because Steemit, Inc let them, which is no different than Steemit, Inc just controlling it themselves.

Regarding Hive, the decisions made at the chain's creation don't have anything to do with whether the chain is decentralized or not. Anytime a blockchain is created its creators can code it to work however they want for any reason they want. It's only after it's launched that it can become decentralized and that is based on the token distribution in the case of a DPoS chain. That's what I was trying to explain in this post.

In any case, I did not expect you to persuade you to come over to Hive. I hope that I'll still run into you from time to time at events and things in the area (after the lockdown is over, of course).