If the vast majority of the community doesn't like this move can't we just ignore the new patch and refuse to upgrade?
Go ahead. :-) I think you will be disappointed however.
If the majority doesn't upgrade and the majority doesn't want it. Then the devs need to listen to the majority. End of Story.
True. Unless of course some hard fork appears- then you're either going to need to get new devs or upgrade in a jiffy.
While technically of course you're right, the majority are the large mining pools and the really big miners who are by and large are quite active in talking about future developments. So it's really voting by hash power, and the people who control the vast amount of hash power aren't the same as the majority of people using bitcoin.