More of them who were against this presumed sentiment of culture self defence, as you claim that in general there is no such thing (i.e. the majority of Italians don't care about it), should have voted the side they truly wanted, or should have gone and cast their vote instead of abstaining. But you may equally assume that they expressed their opinion in doing what they did well knowing what the outcome would be.
As far as preferring the use of local words - or made up words based on the current language - it's something you find in many other countries/languages other than the ones you mention. Or tell you more, some of their languages did not change for centuries thanks to or because of their prolific written tradition. Everything proves that English doesn't have to be present within every language.
I agree they could have just made a silent transition without making a bill and imposing fines, but in the end the decision doesn't sound very controversial to me.