The responses I've seen so far in the last 8 hours is that most can't fathom the change. It seems utterly absurd to me that they take this stance as it alienates most of the older crowd, but what do i know, I'm a newfag from 2010... To me the best way forward is to make as much noise as possible to force their hand, but then again most times it has backfired when people band together to have rules changed... Do you know of any good channels to reach out to >sir , >biaker and maybe >Norf ? They used to be pretty solid voices back in the day, and I'm pretty sure they'd be aghast at the direction this is going...
(Sorry if I did not mention you above, but those 3 and iLLepidus were the main ones I interacted with from ussr back in the days as far as I remember)