No, they didn't.. I did, along with hundreds of others who knew how to point VPS at it. Most of them still are. Why? Because once Bitshares and other DACs are released it will be the #2 coin.
Probably you didn't notice on ypool the users spiderman, batman, robin etc.
ps. i was one of the first that had ec2 instances running for protoshares and still with a few hundred instances it was impossible to get near the hashrate of those botnets. I dont complain because i had a lot of coins myself but a developer that uses a botnet to mine their own coin is a scam in my eyes.
+1