Maybe any VIP members who have bought that level by making a donation should be left as they are, regardless of their post counts? I originally donated to get Master status not long after joining and certainly would've had a low post count at the time.

If VIPs haven't logged on for years it won't matter though. Many experienced users have abandoned the forum after the data loss for 11 months back in 2017 so none of them would care, or even know about a status downgrade i guess.