My suggestion is that you do nothing chadz, and simply let people vent. The essence of therapy is to create space to allow others to work out their own issues.
By wiping out the database you are:
1. Allowing yourself to be influenced by those that whine (compare your database player numbers against the number who whine, to determine if they represent a minority or majority)
2. Not considering the silent population that accepts the changes made
3. Disregarding whatever efforts individuals made in the last year to customize their characters through retirements
If you decide to wipe the database for the present situation, then you will most likely do it in other situations, and this results in removing a huge incentive factor for players to customize their characters over time. If you want player engagement to this game, than I submit that wipes is not the solution.
