One could say that people about to lose status or drop by one or more status levels have earned the benefits according to the FF program rules when they qualified for their status. They simply have failed to requalify for the next year. OTOH, removing a month (even the shortest one of the year) from that bad period that's especially elite heavy due to the overlap of old elites and new elites will be a slight improvement--especially for me as I seem to have some domestic flights every year right before March 1.