EPTkonablog:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=110668
Also, Kwark has been posting his ass off making coherent, logical arguments supporting the decision arrived at by the referees. If anyone feels otherwise, his arguments are the ones to beat.
I think we can all agree that what happened was a tremendous letdown for literally everyone involved (with the possible exception of iloveoov). Players, coaches, fans, E-SPORTS: everyone lost out. Fan death is real, and it's horrifying. This was a disaster. It's far worse than unfortunate.
But short of having access to a time machine, there is no way to fix anything. The most that can be done is to minimize the damage. Either of the possible decisions the referees could have made would have been horrendously unfair. Since there was no best decision to be made, they had to make the least worst decision. They decided that the least unjust thing to do would be to award Jaedong the win. I agree with that decision.
It's probably true that the referees could only make their decision based on the limited information available to them (since all replays were lost they only had what was recorded for broadcast) in a short period of time. There's literally no other evidence to work with. Here's the VOD:
There's a lot of things that happened off the screen, but what we know for sure is that for at least four to five minutes prior to the blackout (18:40 on the game clock) Flash had been investing all his mineral and gas income into a giant SK timing attack, pumping infantry from eight barracks and vessels from two starports. If he had any kind of surplus left over after spending that heavily it could only be marginal. He had virtually nothing to work with at the time of the blackout. At 17:49 we see one of the patches at Flash's natural disappear; given how well Flash maynards and how thick he saturated his lines, there's no doubt that the other patches were almost exhausted as well. Flash's main was mined out. He had just begun mining the six fresh patches at the mineral only south of his natural. His first refinery finished at 3:20, his second refinery at 7:40. Gas mines at 100 units every 20 seconds. This leaves Flash at the time of the blackout with 400 gas left in his main geyser and 1700 gas left at his natural geyser. Knowing this we can be certain that Flash's war machine was on its last legs when the shortage hit. At that time the chances of his breaking Jaedong's southwest base had reached zero. Three sunkens, defilers, lings, and ultras, plus rapid reinforcements via nydus. Flash's only option was to cling to his new mineral line, being very proactive with the few vessels on hand and irradiating every single defiler before it could cast swarm. He would have to stop attacking Jaedong, give up map control and make a last stand at the min only, and as the final seconds of the minimap show, that's precisely what he was about to do.
A problem is that Flash's only source of income happens to be exposed from three directions, including the route between it and Flash's barracks. Even in the highly unlikely event that Flash could fend off every attack before a swarm hit, Jaedong also had the option of going straight for Flash's barracks; the production off 6 mineral patches would hardly suffice to defend it. (Flash taking a fourth base would be clearly out of the question since he had sacrificed map control plus his only potential fourth is also highly exposed). Plus being preemptive with irradiate would be highly risky against Jaedong's scourge control (and with four and a quarter gas Jaedong would not lack for scourge), plus Jaedong's economy was still quite robust (salvaging most of the drones from the northeast base was huge [see 14:01]), plus Jaedong wouldn't even need defilers: with a superior economy and map control he could just crash ultraling into Flash's min only and whittle Flash's welfare SK into nothingness.
Kona mentioned Savior/TT as a case in which it isn't over until it's over, but this wasn't a fight between an over-the-hill Zerg and an old Protoss who never made it up the hill to begin with in an elimination contest on weird-ass Neo Requiem. This was a fight between two kings of the hill. Kings make errors, but they don't make outrageous blunders, and Jaedong would have had to make about three of them to let Flash have even a glimpse of victory in that game. Flash had a chance of victory when the lights went out, but it was far, far closer to zero percent than his supporters will admit.
Awarding Jaedong the win nullified that microscopic possibility. Ordering a rematch would strip Jaedong of all the advantages he had accumulated with such difficulty over 18 minutes and 40 seconds and his careful preparations on that map (the 3hatch before pool, the fast secret 3rd expansion in the northeast) would be null and void. A rematch was infinitely more likely to strip Jaedong of an actual victory than awarding Jaedong the victory was to strip Flash of a potential victory. Neither option was fair, but the latter is evidently and overwhelmingly less unfair.
