Jimmy-
When should developers act to revoke sysop status? I would say "Almost never" although I'm willing to listen to counter-arguments.
I don't really care if I have less work, but my personal opinion on the matter is that protecting pages is one of the most radical things to do in a wiki. Nobody who does not belong to the trusted group of sysops will be able to make additions to the page during the period of protections, and this enforces a class distinction that I am not very comfortable with. I think it should be avoided.
As I have also pointed out, I am not comfortable with the frequent antagonism towards newbies who make mistakes, and this is even more problematic if it is combined with sysop actions. In 172's case, the policy could be interpreted both ways -- that you are not really involved in an edit war if you just express a strong opinion on the talk page before protecting the page, or that you are in fact involved by doing so. My interpretation is a matter of record, and I have now edited the policy to favor my interpretation -- this is of course open to discussion.
You endorsed the previous similar actions in the case of User:Kils, so it seemed logical to enforce the policy as I interpreted it. If, however, you do not want me to do this and want to handle all complaints about sysop status yourself except in cases of major vandalism that requires immediate action, then I will gladly forward such complaints to you. I'm sure the 1 person bottleneck will bite us in the ass sooner or later, though.
Regards,
Erik