Whoever controls the protocol and network nodes can indeed unilaterally alter the blockchain just like any other data structure.

Yeah sure, if there is a single such party. I haven't looked at how stripe is implementing this, but since it's a blockchain total control is an option, not a requirement.

But this is a classical consensus setup where stripe has a front door to change anything about the network they want.

Never trust a cryptocurrency developed by a for-profit corporation.

Stripe would never create a blockchain they can't control, because if it has anything to do with fiat then it's going to need to have that control. I have an extremely high suspicion they have some sort of admin access.

You can sign records in a normal database. Implement some segregation of duty and don't give your DB admins access to any signing keys.

Which is by the DAO exploit on Ethereum was successful and not rolledback by the Ethereum Devs.

Oh, wait... I've been handed a piece of paper...

The protocol allowed it, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like a DB admin just made a change without having to worry about what the rules were.

you get enough voting power and you can fork any blockchain to whatever state you want, no different than an admin doing an upsert

Can you name any significant economic fallout of any kind related to this attack vector?

Because I feel pretty confident that it is dwarfed by the volume of money that has been unlocked by tying crypto to ransomware.

Enron