[Edi]

Bad events are the whole bloody point of misfortune. If you take it, then you run the risk of being ruined by that misfortune early on, tough luck. Even if it does cost you the game in the first few turns. On the other hand, with Misfortune 3, you just got 120 points extra to spend on dominion, magic paths and/or other scales which should presumably offset the problems of the misfortune scale.

Misfortune is already one of the most widely used scales, so why the hell should it be nerfed just so people can feel they can safely take it? Can anyone give me any actual viable reason why this should be?

The best solution I can see is increasing the maximum number of possible events per turn, as that would scale both luck and misfortune a lot better, especially in large games.