I have to say, given that many of the ops on the old list remain active contributors to the project and are at least periodically (if not constantly) on IRC, the decision not to contact them for input before simply removing all of their ops was rather unfortunate. As someone who has been a channel op as long as I've been an administrator (and actually a few hours longer), and who had held one of the highest ops levels in the channel (whereby I could appoint people to be able to make ops) I find this rather hurtful, and certainly offensive.
-Phil