At this point, I am not sure whether steem was decentralized before. Almost all top 20 witnesses were determined by freedom and blocktrades' votes, and most of them stayed as top 20 no matter what they have done.
This recent controversy at least allow users like me to figure out who are the witnesses with the ability and power to move forward.
One correction here: @blocktrades has not voted any witnesses for a long time and only voted less than 10 (4 or 5 only if I remember well, but could also have been 7).
Blocktrades voted now on several more witnesses to help take back the top20.
Thanks for clarifying that.
thank you for the clarification.