Would you change it? (SaO spoilers)

K, so me and my friends got into an argument about Sword Art Online's ending, and how cruel it is.

The idea is if you would have changed the ending to SaO or not... The ending part in question goes as follows;

Kirito, in response to Sugou's *cough* advances toward Asuna, turns the damage thingy (no idea what it's called) from 10 - meaning no pain is felt to the user - to 0 - meaning it actually feels like a sword just hacked your arm off. He then kills his avatar by first chopping him in half from the waist, then stabbing his eye. Side note; that aforementioned damage thing can do real physical harm to a user if it is set below 3.

I think that even Sugou shouldn't live through such an agonizing death and be forever scarred, and my friend would have done worse if he were Kirito.

Any thoughts?