It’s pretty clear what the community consensus here is.
You can leave, and start a new 196 community wherever you like. Leave this one as is, and people can choose to follow one, both or neither.
Locking it here is very hostile to the community and a categorically bad move. I hope the instance admins can step in, remove the mods and unlock the community.
Why are you not engaging with the large number of users suggesting simply leaving this community unlocked and allowing new mods to take over? It’s very obvious you are avoiding responding to those comments. As you have acknowledged, this was handled badly with zero community choice or involvement. Few, if any commenters agree with the move or support it.
Nobody is asking for a “360” on whatever the mod team planned, the community can’t hold you hostage and force you to moderate a community when you don’t want to. Locking the community however should not be your choice to make. If you want to leave, leave. If the mod team and new instance are so important as you suggest, you’ll have a flourishing community on lemmy.world in no time.
But locking out the community with no consultation or notice is just cruel.