The problem I have with it, kind'a, is twofold.
In game, I personally see a harsh break between a DED/CONCORD that "were totally impotent and never really 'policed' before, at least outside the game mechanics they were designed for", a CONCORD that didn't lift a finger when they were practically told up front that the Elderfleet will destroy their HQ... etc. pp. and a DED/CONCORD that goes down on cpasuleers for what seems to be a minor transgression with the force of a thermonuklear bomb, continuing even to threaten people who comply to their full ability.
I don't like whole 180° turnarounds in a story. They are simply not believable, they mean a break of suspension of disbelief for me and generally lend themselves easily to cause such. And lastly, it means you can't really know what consequences you can expect, given your actions. It also leads to inconsistencies as the laws on biomass, which have never been enacted by CONCORD, until now where it's quite convenient for them. - It's a deus ex machina of the bad sort, in my opinion.
Out of game, the problem is that the timeframes are so short that they are counterproductive to any RP happening between the involved parties that aims at searching a third solution between just fleeing the DED and simply comlying. While that might be realistic in some sense, it's also frustrationg. But it is worse: I for example had no way to react to the situation within the original 24 hour ultimatum, simply due to the short timeframe, it being under the week and me having a life besides EVE, with work to be done and sleep to be had. Some people centrally involed in this have not been at home for the weekend, I have heared. Others didn't want to make decisions over their heads. And when I wrote to some NPCs it took a full 15 hours for them to respond - which is reasonable as they are merely people as well, but which is an awfully long time given the background of a 24 hour ultimata tact.
And I'm not even getting into the problem of coordinating over various timzones there.
So, while the way the ultimata are placed follows a certain in-game logic, I feel like the people responsible for setting those OOCly failed to take into measure that we and they are actually not spending 24 hours in EVE and that the realities in the game are subject to out of game realities, rather than the other way around.
(Actually, I stayed with EVE rather than WOW, because the raids I have been member of in my late WOW days didn't see it like that, while the corps in EVE I was a member of saw it pretty much like that: RL/OOC > IC/IG. And EVE lent itself to be played like that.)