As I mentioned in the Z wave replace thread, that would in practice halve the number of devices allowed per location, since there is currently a limit of 200. So I’m not sure that’s going to be the best approach. 
200 Device limit - How to proceed from here?
Some people currently have a single dummy virtual device that they add to automations when they are going to delete a device. The presence of the dummy prevents the automation from being deleted, and that only adds one to your device count. You can even add it to every automation at the time that you create it if you’d rather, since it has no purpose except to keep automations from being deleted so it doesn’t matter if it’s getting turned on and off.