None of the whales want the price to go back to $90-100 yet. There is way, way, way too much money to take from people who will give up their coins when first $60 doesn't hold, and then $50 doesn't hold, and then $40 and $30 are realities.
But in order to do that, you can't just dump from $92-98. You have to depress the market over a longer timeframe in order to encourage a real demoralization of people's hopes for the future. If you don't demoralize people, there won't be fear, and there won't be capitulation.
Besides, if you can short, you can make a ridiculous fortune on the way down too.
That's why there are bull traps on the way down. If it weren't that way, those bull traps would be bear traps. There is _plenty_ of fiat sitting on Gox waiting for a good time to buy. After all, when $100-110-120-130 were the perpetual price point, whoever managed to buy at $80-85 on the last big sell off made themselves a fortune. So why aren't the market buys coming down, especially when you can pick up 10k BTC for less than one mega?
In my view, that makes the direction we're headed in remarkably clear.
The scenario you describe of what's been happening is I'd say not far off the mark. It is also true to say if this overall effect happened so far there's no reason why it could not continue for some time over some further percentage. However I'm guessing the value required in order for there to be enough bitcoin liquidity for buying goods and services and for making long-distance transactions is a
long way down from where we are. Not that I'm reckoning we'll get anywhere near there but in theory as long as we're above that level the current price is nothing more than the outcome of our beliefs. I don't believe anybody's statement of how low it will get is guessing, no matter with how much conviction.