Here's my possible solution to how to correct this problem.
Now this may seem like an earth shattering idea for LL as a change in business model but in reality the sale of virtual land then paying monthly fees after is both foolish and ridiculous. Virtual land has no value, the servers do sure, but then no one is buying the server, they are paying for LL to purchase the server and they hold all the cards. What should be happening right now is LL should take all of this as a learning experience, switch all current non mainland sims to lease agreements with the original investment going into a refundable security deposit and set up fees. And note, set up fees shouldn't be more then a few hundred dollars for a full sim, an open space should be even less. Then allow people to either pay the new fees, or get the security deposit back. No where else do you find pricing policies like what LL is doing. You don't buy a car then pay for the rent to own it. Once its paid its yours.
To summarize this idea in terms of the current climate and problem. All open space sim owners should have atleast 75% of the original start up investment placed as security deposit. Then rest LL keeps as transfer and start up fees. Monthly fees remain the same until jan 1 when the projected change should take place. If someone wants to leave their sim before that date, they receive the security deposit back and the sim can be resold under these new guidelines.
Privately sold sims, person to person, are sold for price equal to the security deposit and transfer fees. Which really, sims now are sold for the price of starting a new one, so it wouldn't take a dive at all, simply change the context of server movement.
Changing to a more flexible business model and not forcing ownership of virtual property (which US law has no virtual property as an asset guidelines) will allow price changes to be more fluid in transition and easier on everyone. The main problem right now is that these people have bought sims they "own" yet LL wants to force them to pay more, or have the property taken.