I don't think this is a one size fits all issue. They're all rats but there are degrees of rat.

Massino...Vitale...Casso....Gravano...Palermo...all upper level guys who flipped on their former subordinates - these are the guys that are supposed to be leaders and masters of that life and then they turn rat on guys some of whom they inducted. I have no sympathy for any of those names, they are all the lowest of the low, the guys who profited the most from the life and who gave nothing back when it was time to save their own skin. Guys who masqueraded for years as diehards who it turns out were nothing more than poseurs.

Then you've got the Pete Chiodos, Joe Valachis and Al D'Arco's of the world who hadn't done anything wrong and were marked for death. Who's going to lie back and take that?? Amuso/Casso practically begged those guys to become rats. I do have sympathy for those guys and can only imagine that I'd have done the same thing in their situations. The blame here lies in the incompetence of the administrations that would create this situation.

Then you've got the Leonettis, the DiLeonardos, the Pennisis, the DelGiornos, the Franzeses and others who are all in the debatable category. Guys that are slippery lowlifes but who were maybe given some sort of justification to flip based on how things went down (the facts of which, again, might be debatable). These are the guys I take at face value but from whom you'll never get the full story. They're all pretty charismatic characters so it's easy to get sucked in by them but if you listen hard enough you'll notice gaps in their stories. Still, they all felt at some time that there was some reason they had to get out of the life and it's reasonable to assume that mistakes were made on both sides of the equation.

Finally you've got total worthless garbage like Natale, Hill, guys like that. The difference between them and the Massinos of the world is that you'd be foolish to have expected much from any of these clowns in the first place, they were all garbage and the fact that they were brought into the orbit of the LCN is the fault of whoever introduced them, vouched for them and worked with them without realizing the obvious: that these guys were total losers.