Why don't you just remove the battery from your Ipod?
It seems to me that the Nerve Gear battery is likely hidden inside the Nerve Gear itself and not able to be removed easily, with the rest of the Nerve Gear guarding it and being tamper proof.
My question is why didn't they just EMP everyone and force off the Nerve Gear that way? If it were insulated sufficiently to protect itself it wouldn't be able to get its signals through to the brain, so it should be possible.
TBH there's probably another reason behind this as well - what would Kayaba do if he started to notice that hundreds of people were logging out of the world? Would he sit idly by and let the police free everyone, or would he likely have already made it clear that attempting to free people will result in a loss of life, and start killing people in game for every person released?
Whilst I doubt he would go to such measures personally, there's not way for the people in that world to know, seeing as he imprisoned 10,000 people in a game of death and all that.
As for Plot Holes... I'll stay away from that aspect of things, but I'll call bullshit on part of the same anime/light novel series. The final fight in Episode 14. The way that ended was just completely bullshit in every way. Antagonist's victory was justified and fine, but the protagonist comeback from that... Yeah, no. That just didn't cut it for me.
Honestly I'm hoping they'll do another season, just for Gun Gale. The Aincrad arc is decent, except that fight, the Alfheim arc is worse than it was in the light novels, and even there its kinda bleh, but the serie's forte is in Gun Gale. Emotionally Mother's Rosario is probably more touching, and Underworld/Alicization isn't bad, but Gun Gale hits the awesome buttons almost constantly, except for the feelings time which is a bit forced IMO. Its the series forte IMO, at least for now.
