I grew up calling racoons "coons" in the region of the US I live in and it's still common to call them that nowadays. Words can have contextual meanings. If I hear the word "removed" and it turns out some guy is working on his car, I'm not going to be offended, and I shouldn't be, because it's not being used as a slur.
All said and done, I don't particularly think it's a big deal to change it, but I do believe it's a highly performative gesture.
There is a way to "pin" package versions isn't there?
I wonder if that would prevent this kind of thing from uninstalling a package that is in transition. Ofc, it wouldn't get any updates, but I'd take that over just not having the package.
Flatpak works though!