ellipsis of possessive pronoun as a semantic subject

Let's take a note for a more watchful reading and better understanding of English.

Below is the taken sentence slightly modulated from a source:

Many second-guessed the firm's judgment in dealing with the disgraced tycoon and questioned its image of honesty and staking the moral high ground.

The subject Many is predicated with the verbs, second-guessed and questioned. With respect to the second predicate verb, perhaps it seems to me that one can read like below:

Many questioned its image of honesty and (its) staking the moral high ground. ... (1)

***

If the sentence above is rewritten as below,

Many questioned the firm's image of honesty and its staking the moral high ground. ........... (2) ,

Can the third sentence below be understood as a sentence of the same meaning as (2) ?

Many questioned the firm's image of honesty and staking the moral high ground. .......... (3)

***

It's really uncomfortable to find that this prior writing is not at all adequate to make my question point. Going back to the starting point, is such an ellipis of "its" obligatory, or can we treat it as a writing option? ....(September 3, 2009)