The game was borderline dead before the patches started, the game is more active now after these broken patches than I've seen in awhile. If they were to make no changes then the game will die. You can't deny that, it's the same story with every game. The only reason popular games stay popular is because the game continues to change which gives people new things to learn or get accustomed to. Or in CoD and Halo's case, they just rehash the game every 25 minutes and call it "new".
I'd imagine most people don't like changes being made to a game they already like, but they're bound to happen you have to accept that or find something new to play.
Edit: Just thought I should point out I'm not defending their judgement on this one. I would continue to play for much longer if they just added more teams, ship skins, and tracks.