1) Any engineer involved in implementing this "fix" is incompetent.
2) If you are not incompetent and management tries to force you to implement this "fix" then you should take pride in your work and refuse to do it, even if it means quitting your job (or forcing the company to fire you).
Yes, there is a possibility that they are in fact right, but they'll probably be right for the wrong reasons. It's far more likely that they'll just be plain wrong (and arrogantly so). Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
One could suggest to such people to display enough financial discipline to save up a rainy day fund, but this is ignoring all the procedures in place designed specifically for depressing wages.
2) Why should you? Unless you're willing to be homeless and leave society, you're not going to find a way to live in a capitalist society which is pure idealism and no compromises, and you can't effect change in a system from without, only from within. Quit, and someone else will implement this fix - you feel good, which is worthless, and the fix ships, which is bad, and Cisco doesn't change, which is bad. Pick your battles and you could use this result in future - to build other people's trust in your recommendations, to widen the review process before future fixes are agreed upon, to have a proven record of the cost of doing things twice.