Firstly, I never found call connect time to be excessive enough with GV to be a deal breaker.
Like I said, I did. It was awful. Maybe it depends on the routing number it's calling, but waiting for calls to connect drove me crazy, and I often wouldn't hear the phone ring until it was just about to go to voicemail. It was an issue that needed to be addressed. Since I've moved on from GV, I doubt I'll ever really know.
As much as unique access numbers seem like a reasonable feature to some, Google chose to release this update without including any other user-submitted feature/bug fix requests or making unique access numbers an OPTION.
Blacklisting Google Voice access numbers would have been an utter PR travesty of user back-lash; so if collusion DID occur, this was an easy way to mask true motives.
You didn't really expect such an easy way to cheat the system and get free calls to be available forever, did you? I expected Verizon to make the change but it turned out they didn't have to, whether it was their hand or any other provider's that prompted it. Anyway, Google has never been very good about making the changes people are asking for. They change what they want when they want. Remember the horizontal send button problem? They released like 3 versions before fixing a blatant bug.
I honestly don't think Verizon would get much negative PR from blacklisting the numbers themselves at all. Not THAT many people use GV, even fewer realized you could do this.
FYI, I now carry a Nationwide Talk/Text 1400 minute plan with two data plans. I'm sharing minutes between four users who all call unique numbers. I pay Verizon ~$400 a month for Fios TV, internet, and wireless services. I have every right to use legal means at my disposal to ensure that I'm not creeping up into the overage territory by using GV on my phone.
Maybe I'd feel differently if my family was even coming close to using our 1400 minutes, but the majority of our calls are either to other Verizon users or FnF.
What happened was you found a loophole and were able to get free calls for a short period. Even if Google made the change for no other reason than to plug the hole, I think you should count yourself lucky that you had access before, not scorned now that you don't.