There are developers who care and developers who are in it for money. If there's only money left and no joy in iPhone development (when people who blogged, taught and promoted leave), the quality of apps in general might fall down a lot.
It isn't a fringe group that uses languages other than Objective-C on the iPhone, it is a large group of people.
So you will write a Obj-C app, and then apple will deny it app store access, you cant sell it anywhere else, your effort and investment are worthless.
Developers shouldn't cozy up to this new restriction nor should they accept the app store arbitrary model. you accept one its no surprise that the other one comes down.
Bottom line, developers bending over for apple should not be surprised when they get reamed.