Does this mean for example, If I send some coins to a paper wallet abd give them to as a gift to a new born relative to hold until they are 18, in 18 years when they come to sell them they will find they have been stolen by 'treasure diggers' ?
If this is the case this needs to be removed 100%.
I think that you are worried in vain.
This function is created to ensure that the number of coins in the Diamond system remains stable throughout the lifetime.
Thus, MN holders and wallet holders will receive a constant POS income even when the reward falls to less than 1% per annum.
This is a serious project created for existence many years.
It is the preservation of the total number of coins in the system on one level, which guarantees reliability and safety of work for future stores and services.
All you need is to run your wallet once every 10 years.
It can be a light wallet for a smartphone or Electrun wallet running in your browser.
As soon as your wallet appears online, it will be considered that it is not lost.
If you keep the private key on paper, then the future development will allow you to almost instantly import and export a private key with one mouse click, so that you can tell that your address is alive.
Once in 10 years -this is a long time.
Or for this long time you do not want to receive your POS reward and tell once for a nodes in the DMD network that your address is live?