I don't like the precedent of chopping bolts unilaterally. By the RCA addressing the issue it is more community based.
Which is a recipe for never removing bolts that should be. Try getting a group to agree on something like that (especially a 'sport' climbing 'community' which perceives its existence depending upon bolts placed by God, elves, or someone, and who are we to say otherwise?). This only occurs through unilateral action, which means that it is prone to abuse by individuals who view the world a little cockeyed, but I don't consider that a reason to refrain when it needs to be done.
This is what we did at Sandrock, a unique climbing area in AL that has been thoroughly trashed by 'sport' climbers machine gunning bolts into everything they can think of. Including decades old climbs that were in the guide book. We were seriously disturbed that this sort of stupid would migrate across the sandstone belt, so a small group of us went over to deal with it. We decided on an objective standard: Even if the climb was a gear protected route in the guide, we had someone who had never been on it lead it on sight on gear. If they did it clean, out the bolts came (to be more precise, slice them off with a Dremel, pop the flush stud further back with a punch, cover with epoxy mixed with the local sand. You need a metal detector to figure out where they had been.) Then we very publicly made it clear what we did and why. And that if this behavior migrated like a virus to places like T-Wall, etc. the response would be...more aggressive. There was a minor amount of bitching, and we had to make a second trip when the local 5.12 'guru' (who somehow never managed to climb 5.12 anywhere else) tried to retro some more routes several years later, but basically people got it, and the virus has not (yet) spread further. The lesson is, be up front, lay down the standard, and if you are confident in your position just do it.
