It's useless to speculate about pulling plugs in a realistic perspective, since in reality it would have taken at max a month or two for an elite team of specialists to disable the nervgear safely, possibly much less if raiding the game company's offices had produced any results.

But yeah, I'm immensely pleased we got back to action (I won't count the stupid Yui arc action). As glad as I was that Kirito and Asuna got together, I'd have preferred battlefield romance instead of the filler feeling episodes. This was quite a badass boss, and I reckon it indicated that the bosses either don't level up linearly (there might be weaker bosses after this) or this one has some fatal weakness nobody in the company just hasn't figured out.