Originally, when an admin was de-adminned, the ex-admin was reduced to a standard member of "suspended" status. I don't recall what the linked account status was.
Anyway, to get rid of the tacky "suspended" status, I unsuspended all the ex-admins, but took away their topic starting, message posting, and editing permissions. This is in effect the same as a suspension, and it was the original method of doing suspensions.
The accounts are also no longer linked.
Adminnemooseus