Because the point (as I understand it) of this whole experiment is that they were trying to create an altcoin that used strict contracts as the basis for transa

Because the point (as I understand it) of this whole experiment is that they were trying to create an altcoin that used strict contracts as the basis for transactions (with no human intervention). Essentially the code is the contract, so code behavior is necessarily abiding by its contract and anything done with that code is legitimate.