Your questions are good ones. This same topic was broached on the ethics page some time ago, but not so direct. There is alot of information needed to make decisions before any agency will likely make a blanket regulation change like this one. They need a goal for the regulation change and the time/money to monitor the changed lakes for ~5 years to determine if the regulation change actually accomplished anything.
This "problem" or "concern" is evident in most popular sport fisheries, and to a degree in hunting. Fish that take longer to mature tend to be more susceptible to overfishing. Whether it's recruitment overfishing or growth overfishing would make a difference. What is the PSD for the lake etc etc.
There is alot more involved in management than just changing the creel limit or size limit for that matter. Changing it could have little to no impact depending on the lake.
I applaud the motivation of you guys to get something done. From a management standpoint I would talk to people to figure out which bodies of water the DEP already has this type of information on, and see if somehow they could be convinced to do trials on a few "lakes of concern" and after a few years determine the outcome.
If you search the bass topics in the ethics section this went back and forth for some time.
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