The reason it has come to this is that Adria Richards never expressed even a minor amount of remorse for costing the other person his job.

She never re-evaluated her actions and acknowledged that she did something wrong.

She had every right to be offended and A) confront them or B) Report them to convention staff.

She reported them to convention staff and that was the right thing to do.

Unfortunately she also decided to publicly shame them and that resulted in a knee-jerk firing.

If Adria had expressed any amount of remorse vs. proclaiming herself a "hero" multiple times in the situation then the whole thing might have been perceived differently.

I'd like to think that everyone will learn something from this situation but the world is really divided into those who can accept responsibility and those who always find someone else to blame when things don't go as they expected.