prices from some minor airports are sky-high
True. I suppose the profits from some of these despised small airports will be the main source of FR income this year. But everything has its limits. To give you an example: this year I organize a group trip to Budapest and for the first time in my memory the Finnair flight from HEL turned out to be cheaper than Ryanair's from Tampere, even without extras. Guess what we chose.
In spite of all I still think small airports do have much to offer, this retreat on the part of Ryanair is quite unnecessary. Apart from pushing away old customers it also changes the attitudes of local authorities who are in charge for keeping small airports alive. FR is perceived as too unreliable customer to invest in these airports, some of them could permanently be closed... quite a few are already threatened.