They can, it would result in an even bigger backlash. They probably just go for the "it will pass, they'll come back" approach instead of going full on against the people. They would also need to find moderators for those subs, which is not that easy, those people are often very committed.

Well you'd need to suddenly find an entire group of people to replace the existing moderators

It can't be that hard to scrounge up another batch of part time dog walkers can it? Surely?

Yep - They can replace the mods and reopen the subs any time they want. Since the majority of the site is working again this morning there doesn't seem to be much point.

Reddit's diehards are a weird bunch, this kind of drama usually passes within a week or so.

There was the time the CEO got caught editing users' comments critical of him.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev...

They'd be overrun by spam, bots and worse within hours without the moderators. That's the real leverage here.