It definitely is a touchy subject! The only way to make every single person happy, would to have a grandfather claus in the Veteran promotoion.
But, as somebody who's been inactive for a large period of time (about a year), I can see both sides of the argument.
Coming back, I'm re-learning new blocks, new crafting, and enchanting. However, I still know the server rules, and how the server is supposed to run. So, I can help people on some questions, and not others.
With google being easily accessible, helping people with crafting questions usually isn't a big deal. 98% of the time, I can help a player, even though I haven't been active in so long.
I feel like I've helped the server quite a lot before I was inactive, but now there's a lot of fresh faces, I don't recognize the majority of names on the server, and they don't recognize me. I'm meeting the new people of the server however, and after a couple weeks of playing again, I'm comfortable enough to talk with people, and know what kind of sense of humor they have (whether I can joke around with them or not).
Back to the issue at hand, I wouldn't completely be opposed to a demotion of rank, and when I became a veteran many years ago, it was a little different process than it is now. Back then it was determined by staff, and now it's a public vote, so the way I got to veteran status was helping people, and the staff thought that I could help more with the green name, and back then it was more of a position. Veterans would be seeked out to answer questions, while mods could handle the griefs and what not (this was before Zerg refined his plug-in). Mostly people seek out mods for answers now days, or already have the answer, thanks to the game being older and most are familiar with it.
So, Veteran rank? I'd be ok with losing my Veteran title after inactivity. Since it's mostly a popularity contest now days, it shouldn't be too hard to get back to the rank! eh?!