In reply to Ionut.

@Ionut Awesome! I’m obviously not part of the TRT, but if I were, I’d value user happiness above guidelines in a critical case like this. If that would mean, after much scrutiny, to temporary waive the no-redirection rule in order to give users a chance to directly react to the changes their sites were about to undergo as the theme had outsourced functionality to plugins—maybe even install said plugins from the same dialogue page through a built-in converter and thus not experience any damage in the front-end—it should be allowed, for that particular scenario.

If I know Mr. Tadlock and his crew, they most certainly will listen to your ideas and support you in making that transition as smooth as possible. Justin says it right here in this comment thread. Why not take his word for it and talk to the TRT about how to make that change happen? With a popular product like Zerif you’ll also set an example for others. Unicorns all the things! :)