In my experience with DPoS, “rules and standards” don’t actually mean anything significant. The only thing that impacts physical reality is token voting and the code Block Producers/Witnesses decide to run. If the participants in the network are not virtuous, ethical, moral actors who understand economics and seek long term value creation over short term wealth extraction, then no amount of rules or constitutions or referendum will change that. We have the amount of freedom our community morality allows (according to some natural law perspectives). Token holders decide this reality. We don’t have enough token holders participating.
BPs do respond to being removed. BPs do respond to security concerns which threaten the value of their holdings and the holdings of those who support them. They may even respond (to some degree) to public shaming.
I don’t think morality can be legislated. If the current active participants in the network have no concerns with collusion, then the security and distribution/decentralization of our system will reflect that. The answer is more voter engagement. If we can not get that, then the reality is the EOS token holders are either uninformed about their investment or they simply don’t care enough to take time out of their busy schedules to pick a proxy. The result may indicate EOS is a little early in what I’m beginning to see as an expansion of empathy and increasing consciousness of our species. I do think we’re making progress, and the fact we’re not yet satisfied is a good thing.