Yes, it seems like they are trying to hold the game hostage with their stating "wipe and I leave". They are coming out with some large changes to crpg, and strategus, and I can see it making sense to wipe...
I know a lot of people who put in a lot of time to this game would be pissed, and might quit. But a lot of those same people are pretty bored with the mod, and don't play it as much as they used to (when they were spending all that time to get to those high levels). So maybe starting fresh (with new gameplay changes) would be the spark to pull them back in.
Not to mention, if they do a complete wipe, and implement big changes to the game (how xp/gold works, possibly remove loompoints, etc) we could all very easily spam the taleworlds forums, and I guarantee there would be a flood of "new" people to the game. A lot of people try the game out and rage quit because they see it as too high of a mountain to climb to be competitive with people who have been grinding for over a year. Someone who is fully loomed and level 33 is going to seem like an intimidating task to get up to that level, so they quit.
It took me about 3 months of playing on and off before I got into c-rpg for real...I just never wanted to "grind" to become competitive with the rest of the players. Once I did I realized it wasn't so bad, but early on, in my mind, it was a huge mountain to climb.