I've been involved in many reversed stock splits. I've never liked them because in most cases it was a desperate attempt at survival by the companies involved. Some just couldn't make it and went lower and I got out. Some went lower and eventually came back and had the same market cap as before and moved on. But one in particular, Telesystems International, did really well for me because I bought them around $.20/share when they were nearly driven out of business. A big holder sold millions of shares day after day until they had all their shares gone and the share price in the toilet. They got their sp back to about a buck and decided to do reverse split 5-1 for good reasons. If I remember correctly the share price immediately dropped from $5 down to about $4.80 or around that area and stayed there for awhile. Them things started to happen. Soon we were at $15 dollars on talks of a buyout. I sold and not to long after that the company was bought out by Vodaphone and some other groups I think.
Anyway sorry about the ramble. What I'm getting at is that their intention was always to sell the company and they needed their share price at about $5 bucks to get the job done. The reverse split was the answer and it was a good thing.
As someone said here we associate reverse split with weak companies and desperation and bad things. POET's situation is not to be compared to any of them for sure. POET is completely the opposite.
Just trying to get my mind around this and things in perspective. POET is the same company today as it was a few days ago.