If it's any consolation, I can tell you from experience that Star Seller status means a lot less than Etsy seems to have you believing. Especially since they started displaying little badges for each component of Star Seller, so you can get pretty little badges without qualifying in toto.
We got Star Seller right away because our holiday sales qualified us, then lost it as we experienced the normal post-holiday fall-off in sales. It made no difference in our sales that couldn't plausibly be explained by normal seasonal variation or what's going on outside of Etsy.
I believe absolutely that Star Seller is not worth the stress that a lot of sellers seem to put themselves through over it. It's nice to have, but it's not a goal toward which you should work. Making sales is the only goal toward which you need to work, Star Seller status is just a by-product of doing things you should be doing in anyway. If you lose a thing of no real value, even if it's for a bad reason, so what? Focus on what's important, don't sweat the rest.
