I don't believe this solution was designed to increase the player count. It was designed to alleviate the problems that a declining player count causes, such as very few nobles per region/realm. And, as long as the number of players leaving doesn't exceed some ratio to the number of regions removed, it will do that.
I was lucky enough to escape any of my characters being significantly affected by the glacier. I did have my main realm badly affected by starvation caused by another GM event, though - the food/gold production rebalance. We lost eight regions and had the population of many of our cities reduced to the point where it will take months to fully recover. So I do feel at least partially qualified to say this:
You are more than welcome to express your dissatisfaction at events. Do not, however, take your anger out at Devs who are only trying to make this a better game for everyone. Most definitely do not accuse them of bias or of targeting realms their characters are in conflict with. Not only is it insulting, it simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. One Dev lost a number of regions that formerly belonged to the realm he is ruler of, and that were fully intended to be reclaimed by that realm. Another lost the entire realm he is ruler of - that hardly seems like something he would do if he was trying to deliberately target certain realms.
