Whoa there guy, shots fired. Kidding. Whether or not a splinter religion is bland depends on who's judging it. I know several people who find the current SA splinter religions incredibly interesting, while others most certainly do not. So long as the number of people interested exceeds 0, interest has been sparked, despite how insignificant one might find that in the grand scheme of things. A collection of small events eventually culminate into larger events, so who knows what lies waiting for us in the future? If this game was solely about invoking large, widespread events (stating that said events were the only interesting ones,) I would have abandoned it within the first week of playing. For me personally, the gigantic, seemingly impossible, uphill battle against SA is what makes the splinter religions fun and interesting; the massive potential they garner cannot be ignored, even in the face of insurmountable odds. I believe this because challenge, struggle and adversity are the primary sources of entertainment in this game, thus the "Battle" in "BattleMaster."
If it takes forever to develop and spread splinter religions, that's fine. If the splinter religions are crushed, that's also fine. Both of these situations inevitably involve some sort of roleplay and effort. It's about the journey, not the destination. Come on, Chénier, try to be more positive once in a while. 
They may be fun to a few people now, that I will concede, but I still do not believe they hold any potential on the long term.
Religions suck. Rare are the religions that managed to attract any significant player investment. And this just went to prove to everyone that investing yourselves in religions is simply a dumb thing to do.
I'm still surprised by the rage-quits. You can't turn around in most continents without seeing someone make a dick move that will inevitably destroy a realm. A gang-bang here, unreasonable diplomacy changes there, backstabs/betrayals/secessions and allegiance changes scattered throughout. Everyone seems willing to fight in the most Machiavellian ways they can muster to make sure their team turns out on top.
I have seen lamentations and gnashing of teeth on the forum from dick moves. People usually carry on, though. I'm starting to think that some of the quits/deletions were just looking for a reason. I think it was Vellos who said he had been waning on the game for quite some time.
I'm still dismayed about your short-sightedness.
It was a dick move on an OOC level, because it makes absolutely no sense IC. A guild leader that suddenly turns on all of his investors and claims all of their investments for himself is fine, a religion leader that turns on his hundreds of noble followers and hundreds of thousands of peasant followers, to appoint the most hated person in the group as head of the faith (and who has the support of a number of people that one can count with a single hand) is not. And on the SMA continent on top of it.
You exploited the poor mechanics religions were implemented with to create a situation so surreal it is ridiculous. That the mechanics allowed you to do this doesn't mean that the mechanics were right to allow it and that you were right to do so.
It also shines the weakness of the player control mechanics. Titans don't seem to ever really treat cases, magistrate cases are lingering as many of us are just too pissed with the game to bother taking any initiative with treating the cases, and the SMA police, which are the titans I believe, have over the years reduced their vision of SMA as what could basically be described as an over-glorified vulgarity report system.
We are supposed to be playing together as friends around a table. A lot of us here would never have pulled off a move like you did. And the people we trust to keep this player-to-player atmosphere true have failed to inspired any confidence or provide any satisfaction.
