Sure, but those structures were always at risk and people knew that and still abandonded them. This highlights the reality that 99.9+% of players just go away never come back. If a significant fraction did return, even for a short bit, Eve would have a million concurrent users given how many people try Eve each month. These owners just quit the game and didn’t care enough to take down their structure and will never visit New Eden again.
The fact is the vast majority of people aren’t coming back. Of those that do, most will still have their stuff either safe in a NPC station or in an active station fueled by their group. A few people will lose things, but even of those, most will only lose a small fraction of their wealth and not really care, and even of those few unlucky ones who lose almost everything, I bet many of them will just continue playing.
I don’t know for sure, but I really think the number of players that will come back in the next couple years and decide not to resume playing because they lost stuff will realistically only be in the dozens or maybe low hundreds. Contrast that against the thousands or tens of thousands of active, paying customers enjoying the game and the decision is a no-brainer for CCP.
CCP did what they reasonably could to get the word out and now the chips will fall where they may. It will be very hard to quantify what impact this has, but I trust CCP looked at the numbers and data and made an informed decision here and their interest is a better game for all.
In the last year or so, selling progression to compulsive grinders and hoarders seems to have fallen out of fashion at CCP. Pandering to that demographic wasn’t working, and all the concenssions to wealth and safety CCP bribed players with need to be remedied. Citadels were way overbalanced and changes were needed. Yes, how CCP handles those changes is important, but a lot of people also left the game because of how stifling and safe CCP made the game.
People quitting the game over losing stuff while they are away is going to be so small a group that it will be in the noise of all the other reasons people stop or continue playing Eve. I don’t have the data nor can see the future to tell how many people that will be, but I can see and feel that New Eden is more exciting and dynamic than it has been in half-a-decade because of the renewed courage CCP has found to challenge players and the established dynamics of the game. This is a good thing.
. At that point I’d be too busy raging about how CCP is introducing yet a new faction of ships that we don’t want or need on top of the Trig faction of ships we didn’t want or need. I’ve got better things to rage over 
