You're confusing two things, that yes, happened at the same time, but are disconnected. Actually 3 of them. ^^
1) Yes, it could be incentive, or actually, so we thought, before realizing desertion never concerned any experimented player. I actually NEVER lost ANY unit. My troops are always stored inside my acropolis, and when they weren't, I've always stored enough food for days, if not weeks.
2) They added the missing bonus to the temple of Demeter level 1, from 0% to 4%. Suddenly our grain consumption fell down from 7% to 3%, immediately allowing to upkeep more than twice as many troops without getting negative on grain, and without doing anything !
3) They also added an undocumented +33% to farms production. This is actually the only reason for grain overflow, as it changed every city production, including abandonned ones.
This was the only reason for the grain trade crisis.
However,
Armies are huge now only because players have been playing Persians for over two full years now, and armies are vowed to get bigger and bigger as they grow, allowing to play higher levels for even bigger payouts, etc.
Some old players reaching 100 M offense and even more was inevitable, sooner or later (and I'm not talking about coiners here, getting them within a few weeks).
We all thought desertion was an incentive, but at the time, we thought troops could dismiss while inside the acropolis or sent outside, which actually proved to be wrong.
When all this mess arose, we had people having much more than 100 millions of combat value already, and it has never been a problem for them : they just raided daily and problem solved. Of course, the additional grain and reduced consumption from the updated temple allowed them to upkeep bigger armies even if troops would still be dismissing, until they reached the new limit and became negative again (which I reached quite fast then, because of what I wrote above about Persians and levelling up).
So OK, troops are not dismissing anymore, but it has never bothered us in fact.
But it did bother new players who were too weak to raid and get enough food. We've all gone there : before we could build the temple, we were forever struggling for food.
This feature was actually stressful for beginners, but has never been for strong players. So was it really worth keeping ? And why would you handicap beginners ? Are they really a threat for you ?
Since the grain overflow is coming from the farms 33% permanent boost, it would have change nothing anyway.
If you really want grain to become rare again, then you should ask for the 33% boost to be removed instead. Else you're just illogical, asking for somehting that's totally unrelated.
However,
Even if grain is flowing, and even if big armies players have never cared about desertion because it was easily addressed, they still need lots of grain to produce troops and sign agreements, so they still have to get some. I'm actually permanently lacking grain, because it's ticking down at almost 1 grain per second. And I do need grain.
I've even traded timber and bronze for grain, and I'm happy with idiots still dumping grain, while both high end players and beginners without a temple ofDemeter are still needing grain so much...
So I'll give you the same answer as before : grain prices are only what YOU chose to offer. If you're going on dumping it while lots people of people are still needing some badly, then you're doing them a present, but please stop blaming the game : you the dumpers are the only ones responsible for its low price.
I have offered to trade grain for timber or bronze many times, and I didn't have to offer at 2:1 rates to have it bought. There are always people around needing grain, and they're wise enough to select offers based on distance and travel time, provided the rate is reasonable (but not the lowest).
When people will stop dumping grain at 2:1, they'll realize nothing has been broken, but their own behavior.
