The claim was made that common usage defines meaning (I don't entirely agree), and that the masses had spoken, as it were, and determined that decimate no longer has any notion of 1/10th of something being removed, but rather the word's meaning is now functionally identical to destroy or devastate (I don't agree with this either).

My point is/was that if that claim is true, then the choice of which word to use is purely one of aesthetics rather than exercising any nuance of meaning or intent -- a regrettably poor evolution for a language.