Their extensive research and polling probably involved looking through their database to see who had between 9 and 14 credits accumulated in the past 12 months of which several of those credits were going to expire in the next month. SWA probably called them and asked them if they would rather have:

1) A two-year period to accumulate 16 credits in order to even have the chance to get a RR award, or
2) More restrictions on the award that they weren't going to get anyway because their credits were going to expire.

There is no way they asked any true frequent fliers this "research" question because if a flyer doesn't have a problem accumulating 16 credits in 1 year, they surely wouldn't vote to add capacity controls. What a complete bunch of B.S.