I would like to point out that of the 5 people being talked about here (Colin Watson, Russ Allbery, Ian Jackson, Joey Hess, and Fog Heen), only one of them has

I would like to point out that of the 5 people being talked about here (Colin Watson, Russ Allbery, Ian Jackson, Joey Hess, and Fog Heen), only one of them has actually resigned from Debian as a whole in any real sense (Joey Hess). Colin Watson is still on the TC for the time being, Colin, Russ, and Ian are all still acting in their other roles as DDs, maintainers, what have you, and Fog Heen has only indicated that he no longer is the maintainer of systemd. Four of these five people have expressed an intention to continue being involved in Debian, just not necessarily in all of the same roles they have been.