This is really excellent work. The fact that it is seemingly easy to deprogram LLM's makes me hopeful. I wonder whether that will lead to more barriers in the future though, like eliminating "harmful" content already at the dataset level.
Which last two releases? SDXL is very much not a dud. SD 2.x was (2.1 less so than 2.0, but not enough to make up for 2.0.)
SD 1.5 still has a bigger ecosystem of fine-tunes, etc., and its less resource intensive, so its superior for some work, but SDXL is rapidly catching up in ecosystem support in a way that 2.x never did.
SDXL's only real differentiation now is the ability to locally host and avoid the OpenAI / Microsoft censorship filter. Leaning into that would be a smart decision, although maybe it conflicts with Stability's attempts to raise money.
Whether the base model does them well or not, there were (and very quickly after release) far more resources (checkpoints, LoRa, TI) for both for SDXL than the ever were based on the 2.x base models.
Plus any combination of harmless concepts on their own could be harmful, so really - no.
Now maybe they are making the argument that generative models are too dangerous to be given to anyone at all except a few government blessed gatekeepers but such an argument probably would need proof.