id imagine the only people who left the game because of that change were the ones who were:
1) suiciders
2) nations who liked to ambush others and could only win wars that way
also, whilst i like the fact that bots now have army gb and have good sized armies (e.g. 10-15m etc) its actually a false sense of opportunity for new players imo because most of the time theyll go mixed etc and cant break those bots - saw a lot of fails from new players last few sets IIRC but thats a different question.
in regards to your tech point - agreed that it reduces military losses but i am talking about losses of cash / food / stock etc on hand. AFAIK thats not impacted by the medical tech...unless i havent noticed it because by the time people have full bank and have cash / food / oil stock in large amounts on hand they also have full tech etc.