I don't see why the airdrops could not have continued at a reduced level or extended interval as part of the distribution method. If nothing else, it gives people a reason to look into Byteball and is easy to understand. I realize you always said the March airdrop may not happen, and can see moving away from rewarding BTC holders, but it would be interesting to see some data on how many new users these methods have attracted (sorry if it's somewhere I missed) versus the airdrop participation.
I realize that people blinded by greed cannot really get it: the purpose of the airdrop was to spread the coins to more and more people. It has worked for a while, it has then stopped to work. Alternative distribution methods are not much better? This only means we have to look for yet more different and better ways, not just go back to a method which have proved not to work any more.