I would agree that I don't know what "going nuclear" means in this context. I think it just means not buying stuff from wotc if you don't like they way they are conducting their business. Likewise, no one is who is so-criticizing wotc is able to make your "life's passion...fade into obscurity." That's equally hyperbolic.
In fact, the only things that will be 'fading into obscurity' will be those products that relied on the OGL. For example, my favorite OSR game, Whitehack 3e, has paused sales, and my other favorite game/company, Old School Essentials by Necrotic Gnome, has a much anticipated kickstarter in the works that is in jeopardy. Hopefully they'll figure out a way around the OGL. Nevertheless, you can remain blissfully unaware of the existence of these and many other 3pp and free to keep playing your official wotc-approved version of dnd, aka your "life's passion."
My preferred edition is actually BECMI, and DriveThruRPG has me covered as long as WotC is happy to sell the classics POD. I own the OSE Classic and Advanced books and Greg Gillespie's mega dungeons, and bought everything from New Big Dragon Games/Richard LeBlanc on Lulu today just in case it goes away with the new OGL, but of those three, i would think only Necrotic Gnome is likely to have to worry about hitting the $750k threshold to pay royalties and, while I appreciate the production value of OSE Classic, i think "faithful" retro clones like that stretch the spirit of what the OGL was meant to allow.
I never said I only support official WotC approved D&D, I said that I'm very skeptical of the idea that many studios who will be subject to royalties don't also have the resources to reduce their reliance on the OGL.
Someone elsewhere mentioned that many third party publishers sell for very low margis, to the point that a 20% royalty might mean selling at a loss. It wouldn't be unreasonable for WotC to try to tweak the licensing agreement in a way to prevent third parties from undercutting them like that. They probably very much don't want their competition being able to undercut them on a given product so aggressively, and the royalty might be more about forcing small publishers to sell at prices WotC can compete than it is about WotC making cash off the royalties. Accomplishing this with a price-fixing agreement would have been illegal, but a royalty structure might accomplish the same thing legally.
Edit: And yes, of course some of my posts have been hyperbolic. I was trying to match the hyperbolic energy i see coming from the anti-wotc wing of this debate in hopes it makes clear how awkward it is to talk about games when half the community is so revved up.