It's a play on "the beatings will continue until morale improves". You obviously can't just beat morale into people, and, knowing that, the audience should understand improvements to a bad situation will not be forthcoming. It's often used for dramatic effect as dark/silly humor when something bad happens.
Sure, but I struggle to see the similarity being implied between "beatings" and "reverts". Does that make me insensitive?
There isn't really any similarity. Like I said, people use it or make a play on it for dramatic effect when something bad happens.
It's acknowledging that reverts are in fact tough on morale, even though better than letting faulty features with rough edges through. I thought it was kind of clever way to just start out acknowledging that everyone's worried about the revert rate, even though the maintainers say it's okay.
It is a play on the old joke “The beatings will continue until morale approves.”