We could not unaccept the already accepted applications. These players were part of the game by the time we could act, and we were not going to halt the entire game just because we needed to get our shit together.

Honestly, as the mods, not only is this something you could have done, it's probably something you should have done.

It would have given you proper time to think through not just your response to the community but also to the eyes that are now watching all of this unfold, instead of "going about this massive patchwork attempt [without] anything even resembling expert precision."