Let's recap:
- they were technically right
- misinformation campaign to discredit and shame them publicly was initiated
- this noise completely overwhelmed Bitcoin dev process and distracted people for months
if anything all this did was to further separate dev from angry mobs. not sure it accomplished it's intended goal you described.
best way to make change in the dev process is to become involved, gain credibility amongst current devs, and then put in your well informed technical review on these changes.
this is what everyone else involved in the dev process has done and will continue to do so, even in the presence of misinformed angry mobs.