Actually a silent protest along the lines of a black frontpage with a smiley (or something else) with its head hung low would in fact make the point much better than any kind of discussing the issue.
But at the same time we would need to be almost entirely silent about the whole issue, besides perhaps making more tests, with no emotional outbursts.

There is nothing more effective than the sad look and then silence. But that effect would be ruined when somebody choose to scream at a dev or make a rant about the issue. Thus I think such a protest is impossible here or any fansite for almost any game.

Since we have gotten to the point that the two sides are very much set in their oppinions, I think we need people who have yet to voice anything in this matter to enter, people who have a history of being silent. If a number of them can produce images of the strategic map around 200BC looking like the starting game or worse (rebelling cities can still happen) then a point would have been made.
If it happens to be those who has been most vocal we run the risk of getting dismissed as wanting to see the bad side or perhaps worse of creating the images.

It is indeed a very sad post by the Shogun. But even if CA has understood the problem (which I hardly think they haven't) then what else can they do if they have used up their quota of patches? Silence hasn't worked, perhaps dismissal will... If they said that it was indeed a bug and then mentioned that there won't be any patch to fix it, then what would we be seeing now? An even worse reaction.
Personally this has confirmed to me that there is a quota of patches, and it has been used up. And sadly this also makes me realize that we won't get an official yet unfunded patch like the one we got after VI (yes that was made in the sparetime).

On the positive side, as I mentioned I think they have recognized the issue but can't say that, they will silently fix it in the expansion. Who would notice? We could say that now the AI doesn't lift all the sieges, but if they refuse the issue was ever there how could they have fixed it? Thus they don't have to explain anything.

All in all I read the statement to say:
No more patches prior to the expansion.
We have noticed the problem but we can't resolve it as per a patch.
We will most likely fix it in the expansion.