That was how it was in the past but this rule does not apply anymore. Unless a witness disables its account by broadcasting they disabling key it is still scheduled for producing but will miss blocks.
You can see by yourself, on Fri 27th Nov 2020 01:31 AM Sydney Time, I took these screenshots:
As noticed, @busy.witness has not disabled the witness for 38 weeks now, however https://hivekings.com/witnesses does show that that witness has recently missed 3 blocks (see the +3 near the missed block count).
Check that page again tomorrow and notice the number of missed blocks would have increased.
If you now check the witness schedule (https://hive.arcange.eu/schedule/) you will noticed that some witnesses who have missed blocks for a long time are still scheduled. For example, @delegate.lafona is still scheduled to produce a block despite having missed blocks for the last 7 weeks.
Having stopped your witness for almost two years now, you mustn't know that change of rule inside the blockchain code.
What update was that ? When did that happen ?
And: Why ?
I can't exactly remember when it happened but it was before the split STEEM/HIVE. The reason, not sure...
It seems, you are right...
@delegate.lafona has missed blocks since yesterday.
Is there a knowledgable witness, who knows, why this was changed ?
@delegate.lafona, last a_slot: 47,677,689
current head block: 49,030,085
from
get_witness_by_accountedit:
@ busy.witness: 41,435,907
Those are last produced block numbers not number of missed blocks