Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually ended up going further and removing me as author from gems I don't actually maintain anymore, which brings down my exposure considerably. It's actually not as easy as it could be to remove yourself as an author from a gem (have to do it via command line).
What happens to orphaned gems? It seems like someone could make the case for getting ownership of them much easier than if you kept ownership and added a loud deprecation warning.
I wasn't the only author on those gems, the others are (mostly) still active. Not sure how orphaned gems are handled, though.