Why would they protest you anyway if you're trying to save them?
Either way, haven't witnessed such cases myself. If you truly want an adjustment to the code, you might want to rile people up and open up a Feature Request. Other things changed too, with the lower player density.
I got protested cause I asked them to. I couldn't do anything while I was in the position and stepping down was even far more costly. "only" lost 2 prestige and 15 honor this way, stepping down would be far more brutal.
