b) may not have actively revelled in his own evil.
I hope you don't mean the "evil" that he was completely exonerated of.
He was railroaded for political gain, and that's it.
"Evil" was straight up hyperbole. I was never a fan of his politics. But the dude was human and I'm just not the sort of person who can jump up and down and say "Yippee is dead!"
If we can't take care of Spaceship Earth, and learn how to live on board it in peace, we're not going to do any better on any smaller spaceships we build.
On the other hand, if we have a bunch of little spaceships out there, there's always the chance that the population of one will manage to get its shit together and stop being retarded. The way things are currently, it's all our eggs in one basket. A very large basket, to be sure, but a single basket nonetheless. I like our odds (which are probably pretty low no matter what we do) better if we spread out.
Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.