There were many questions as to Bitcoinica's security long before they were hacked. As far as pirate, that isn't even close to being in the same category as this.
This one was a little different because people presumed that because some good security practices were in place, others (such as what should be rule #1 for an exchange ... Thou shalt keep anything more than a day's worth of bitcoin need in cold storage) would be followed as well. As we learned too late, they weren't
Yeah Due Diligence failure on my part. I just assumed and I guess so did everyone else. Had it come to light that there was no coldwallet I would have stopped using the site. Not shifting blame just genuinely surprised about this security failure AND my own failure to ensure the exchanged lived up to my own personal standards.