The JIRA entry got almost 4000 votes ! I have never seen so many votes on that bug tracking system, that's a sign the protestation was massive, and that the Lindens did listen.
Now, I won't pretend I am satisfied with their "change of plans" (although, like Inara, I think it was actually planned to be this way from the beginning, it's a common negotiation technique after all). 25% of the price of a full sim a month for 5% of its prims and much less processor power, even knowing an openspace (well, "void" is more adequate) is as large as a full sim... that's not what I would call a fair trade. Especially since people paid for 25% of the prims in the first place and were never told this value would change over time. I still say that the money they charge for leasing you a part of a quad-core server with a Debian distro is ridiculously high.
But this is a small progress, and I want to thank you all for voting and maybe helping bend this ridiculous business scheme to make it more acceptable.