I would not be surprised to see 3 or 4 different attackers pouncing on block 5400 in order to TW it and gain a massive cache of coins. You guys will have little to no choice but to confirm their coins when the chain is released.
If the developers had any care for this coin at all, they would immediately suspend the KGW deployemnt.
They still have days to do so and getting the word out would be very easy at this heightened state of awareness. There are many skilled developers confirming this exploit will succeed, including Nite69, the "walk on" developer called brilliant by the Auroracoin Team.
It makes absolutely zero sense to continue on knowing this.
~BCX~
I'm inclined to specifically agree with the bold portion of your post. The developers have attempted to thwart an attack by reducing the median time-stamp from 11 blocks to 3 blocks and by reducing the time-stamp to current time difference from 2 hours to 20 minutes. I still think this chain is vulnerable to an attack. These preventative measures do make it more difficult to attack the chain by increasing the amount of time an attacker must spend building his own chain, but one must remember, an attacker will be working outside of time when he builds his chain. In essence, he has all the time he needs. If you combine a coordinated effort to make pools inaccessible with the assumption that most miners do not have multiple pools or solo-mining set as a back-up, this chain is still highly vulnerable. Prove me wrong.