You (and the R6S) community are making a mountain out of a molehill. Ubi clearly didn't think changing a few assets would upset the playerbase, so they made a decision they felt would be more sustainable for development (an aside--this isn't just about "boring grunt work"--it's about best practices to maintain an important asset in a competitive game, minimizing risk, and improving work efficiency). This is a really normal thing to do in day-to-day operations, and wouldn't invoke second thought. When the community got upset, they acquiesced. It honestly probably wasn't that big a deal for them either; I'm just trying to explain why they defaulted to what they did.
And no, I have no moral qualms with this. You learn to design around it, as they will surely do going forward. In the end, if you absolutely want to make a product that can't operate in China without breaking artistic integrity, then it's clearly not a product that's suitable for that market. But I think it's silly to say that Clubhouse without slot machines and neon stripper signs is one that lacked artistic integrity.