It's defensive, yes, but vigilante would take it too far I think, because it's a common-sense hedge.

Not everyone needs fuck-you money all the time. For example, you could run an SPV wallet now and in the future, if there is a need, you could sync up a full node, serve your own blockfilters (the SPV kind not the perceived Knots kind.)

But that is assuming there is nothing crazy going on on the network, and it takes time to sync. So, it is a good precaution to continuously sync your node, at least have the blocks, have your utxos and if you can, sharing back would be a social thing to do.