You'd think they would have complained about the problems with Steem at some point prior to this announcement. Such a well-known and used dApp with so much delegated Steem power should have some influence to change things around here, but they made no attempt whatsoever, which leads me to think you're probably right. They were just here to milk the system until they were ready to launch their own competing blockchain.
I love how they used the Steem community to design their new logo, too. The contest was announced just 28 days ago. No need to hire an artist for the rebranding, just milk the Steem community some more before the switchover.
I hope this inspires the Steemit development team to push out SMTs earlier than was announced.
RE: DLive is joining the Lino blockchain, moving away from Steem