The fact that they all didn't just say f*** it and move does in fact show patience and dedication too.
Not true at all.
The fact is most of them did in fact jump ship (I don't know if they cursed, but that's beside the point) when 4E showed up in the driveway with its ugly cousin the FRCG, and the complaints of those fans were heard far and wide on the internet.
Quite a few stuck with the 3E Realms and ignored 4E all together (which meant no more Realms product purchases), or they went for the Pathfinder rules, which they used to continue play in their pre-4E Realms campaigns, or they went for Pathfinder in its entirety which meant dumping the Realms and starting new campaigns in Golarion.
Those that remained weren't that vested in the lore of the Realms, or (like me) were willing to roll with the changes and hope for the best.
Contrast this with the 2E to 3E transition, where the majority of Realms gamers made the transition because they embraced the 3E rules, which helped to reinvigorate D&D.
I think gamers who've come to the Realms with the 4E rules are pretty tame, and maybe these are the people you're thinking of. But lets not forget that the Realms have been around for almost thirty years. From calls for boycotting authors, to hellfire flamewars over the
least of changes made between editions, to hardcore fans of older editions of the Realms showing (online) the very worst of fannish behavior towards the game designers working on those changes...yeah, some Realms fans have been pretty poor stewards of the setting.