The exchanges can just change a couple numbers in their database and reverse the hack... r-right?
A consequence of making that formal is that the total owned amount of bitcoin would be more than 21m, because the hacker would own bitcoin and the users would own bitcoin on the exchange.
As long as there isn't a bank run, that discrepancy would not be a problem, but it would deflate the currency, also seen as unacceptable to bitcoin purists.
edit: access -> accept.