So far as I can tell as a complete outsider... Bitcoin developers and the bitcoin community (i.e. people trying to make bitcoin much larger) are not finding shared solutions for the future of the network. It's impossible to know (from the outside) who is right, but both sides are very very sure that they are in the right! Time to fork it and move on I think.
No, similar to Abe lincoln bringing the entire union together splitting the country into a 'north' and 'south' would have disabled the progress that was made in the 100 years after.
trying to make everyone happy is not possible and in my opinion is one of the first steps towards failure.