Yes, Greece should have acted much more honestly.
And its creditors should have known better, too. Demanded higher interest rates that better reflected the risk at the time of lending. It isn’t as though people thought Greece was a paragon of fiscal virtue at the time the lending happened.
But now both are in this situation together, and only one is being asked to pay the price. And to do it in a way that is counterproductive for both, since an excessive debt burden and austerity are contractionary. I think Greece would have been better off financially and justified morally in defaulting under those conditions.
