I had a bloated list of 26 relays. I reduced it to 11. Still too much?
My followers went from 126 to 76. Can anyone explain the mechanics of why?
Discussion
The model I'm describing doesn't work today because people aren't publishing their relay lists, so you have to hack around it temporarily.
How many followers you have is hard to count. With less relays surveyed you'll pick up less people.
The problem of followers disappearing from can be solved if clients implement local storage of your contact list. Each follower is tied to a certain relay that they technically followed you on. If you remove that relay that the following event is stored on, then their follow no longer appears. f you add that relay back, the follow will appear again.