byronkats
Thanks for your excellent questions.
To be clear, this proposal is not to give blanket approval, but rather to establish a space for us to discuss and align on a general framework for a specific type of M&A (tender offers for tokens of forks)-- imo the clearest case for M&A because these TOs contain clear conditions which, if met, essentially guarantee they will be good trades.
Our thinking in establishing a general framework is that it allows us to discuss these concepts with a bit more space than if there is an active deal on the table. In that case, we would probably be rushing to execute and it would be hard to have the same level of conversation with the community in that context. A comparison that comes to mind is the reward rate reduction framework: it's much easier to execute a reward rate adjustment where that adjustment conforms to a broad consensus that has already been formed.
Finally, I agree with you that the #1 question is why a fork would want to be absorbed. Indeed, not all forks will want this. But where a fork is struggling because, for example, the market has lost faith in its execution, we believe merging with Olympus will be more accretive to that fork than trying to get back on track alone. And, whereas simply dissolving the project could achieve similar economics by distributing the treasury, that option would require the team to give up on the shared vision of creating a defi reserve currency. In cases where a team and community wants to keep going but can't realistically do so alone, we think these deals could make sense.