Andy: Did it occur to you that maybe there were no objections because there was no visibility to the request?
Quite frankly, I am amenable to these changes and support pushing granulated data like this and Authority Control to Wikidata. I am. I recognize the value of these efforts, and how great it will be for Wikidata and Wikipedia.
However, without proper user-friendly documentation -- not just a template page update that unless you are familiar with templates it will be unintelligible, but a proper set of documentation for newbies and experienced editor alike -- and just as importantly, without communicating this change effectively to the larger spectrum of Wikipedia and Wikidata editors, this approach comes off as a rogue effort.