You're presenting this like it's a secret thing that lost private keys are irrecoverable.

It's not a secret. Immutability is one of the key features and regularly advertised part of the system. So much so that when that irreconcilability is violated (e.g. rolling back the DAO hack in Ethereum) it's seen as a negative.

There might be some morons who didn't do any research before investing, but they won't be a huge loss if they sell out and stay out.