I have never pvp'ed but this change does concern me that they may just remove follow from the game, period. I agree with a lot of the posters here that the move was very sneaky.
As to folk protesting, I think that only serves to give boxing a bad name and it will not have any effect on blizzard, they know the numbers and made a decision based on the loss of players they would take based on this move.
Afterall it is about the bottom line and keeping the majority of their playerbase happy, not the minority, which boxers are.