I'm of mixed opinion here, for full disclosure I used to work for Computer Power a few years ago, and before that I had studied there, here is my attempt to provide a bit of background, from before I worked there.

(Please, someone correct me if anything I say here is wrong, there is a rather long Whirlpool thread from the time of CPAU's failure that is worth a read for the full details)

When I had started studying there, was around the time that Computer Power Australia went into Administration, the NZ unit was 'financially sound' and was let to run by the Administrators, after what I believe was effectively a fire sale, Didasko (an Australian company) brought both the failed Australian arm (but less I seem to recall, the contracts to students/bad debts etc that caused it to go into Administration) and the okay NZ arm.

I seem to recall that the main reason why they had to buy the Australian arm, was so that they could take all the existing 'IP' and software used at Computer Power, and continue running it, and to also allow reentry under the "Computer Power" brand to Australia (which I had noticed earlier this year that they have actually done).

On OP's points, I'd really have to concur, a lot of the students at Computer Power, are really great people, back in my days the lunch room at the old Auckland location was often host to a lot of interesting discussions (both technical and not), the only real downside was that some of the course content was a bit out of date (Windows 98 content in 2005/2006, RHL 7.sometime in 2007), but I know that starting late in my course, that they really put a massive effort into updating courses, so I doubt there are instances like that these days, I had friends there that were doing one of the Level 5 courses - Systems Tech I think it was called - that got a lot of old modules replaced with much newer ones, and there were major rewrites to big chunks of courses/modules.

Looking at the Facebook page, a lot of the really great staff from the Auckland office are still there which is great (including one which I think must've returned to working there), some appear to be missing (or I can't recognise them now).

I also saw the Stuff article when it was published, there was a part of me that reacted as "oh, not surprised" but I did think it is a bit of a loss at the time of reading. If what Stuff has written about Computer Power basically acting as guarantor of NZTT's tax debts etc, and that is what has caused CPNZ to now have issues with the IRD, then I think ultimately Didasko should be responsible, unfortunately, with no knowledge of how it was all structured, I have no idea if that really is the case (from the articles I'd say, unfortunately no).

For that all, I'd really like to see Computer Power NZ in some form survive, however, as now a taxpayer et al. a tax debt is a tax debt, in addition, it really is good of IRD to offer to settle for only 3million. Also, the sad fact is, it really seems that this is a disappointingly common trend with PTEs, Excom (another PTE in the IT sector) went under some time between August 2010, and iirc August 2011, I had some (minor) dealings with them at one point and again was really surprised that they went under.

If you search old NZ Heralds, there are a few cases in the last 5 years, where NZQA and/or Immigration have had to put PTEs on watchlists (I'm not sure if this has ever happened to Computer Power) for various reasons (turning blind eyes to cheating, not notifying immigration of certain criteria - (this is the only thing that I'll say that I learned as an employee of Computer Power on the matter, but NZ Immigration/NZQA have some pretty strict criteria for International Student visas, around one week of not turning up is grounds to notify Immigration of a visa breach/potential cancellation, and they don't like not been told), and other 'offenses'), this I suspect is the reasons for a number of failures too...

There are a few things I would like to say in addition to what I've said above, but that is stuff that I learnt while employed there, or I'm uncertain of if I was a student or employee there at the time, so I'm not going to say it.

I certainly feel sorry/sympathise for the current students and staff of Computer Power, I don't think it's time should be up yet, especially since from everything I can tell, there have been massive changes since I had a vested interest in it.