I know when I was modding here, can't remember if I was a normal mod or an S-mod at the time that I could see IP addresses. Good way to catch multi's.
What can it hurt to try? You list the updates, people get to say yay, nay then give them a try in game then you'll be able to see if people changed their opinions after trying things and may even offer up some suggestions, seems reasonable to me.
It may not have changed the goal of the discussion but you have tools that you've yet to use that you can try out and see what people think. Another option is just to follow the path that BigPoint did and end up ticking off the players. There used to be a lot more players here and I'd love to see more but a big part of that depends on how you guys run the game.
P.S. The masses probably feel like they were being punished for what multi's have done.