> its editorial board (i.e. regular researchers not employed by Elsevier) collectively resigned

Cases that might be closer to many HN readers are:

1999: Journal of Logic Programming editorial board resigned and created Theory and Practice of Logic Programming

2003: Journal of Algorithms board resigned and founded ACM Transactions on Algorithms, prodded by Don Knuth (see links)

2006: Topology -> Journal of Topology

So, it is possible to overcome the coordination problem and cooperate to defeat Elsevier.

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/%7Ehal/jalg.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13557667