I agree. Filling the world with useless totems for half a year in hope that someone might come back is kinda nonsense imo. Those people who have left in April already got their 6 months...even 8 month now. I played ATITD, and there it took 2 months for buildings to decay after the owner left the game...and that 2 months was very very long, and drove a lot of players away.
I like AndyI's idea about opening up new lands now, before advertising the game and before the free period is offered to players who have left...the new lands have been promised since launch, it's high time to finally get them. That's solves the problem of totem decay for now, and the devs will get some more time to figure out a proper solution.