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Perhaps it's because acquired companies tend to be more useful and more popular than companies that fail. So the cumulative disruption is greater for the acquihires than for the failures.

Or in other words, I would sacrifice many many startups to get EtherPad back again.

true one

Hard to believe that a team that knows it will be able to be acquihired won't be phoning it in and slacking off. Same as people do when they have taken finals and know that grades don't matter anymore. If you know failure is at the end and not some big prize and do over you will naturally try harder.

Not trying to suggest either is better. Just thinking through why people (including me) might react to them differently.