Was LNOTE & Aquostic to protect Rick !

No I don't think so, if they wanted to protect Rick they would have come off the road after his 2014 heart attack.

And certainly there's no way they would have been playing completely pointless shows like the one in Turkey which ultimately sealed Rick's  fate.

I think there may have been an element of that in it. But I wonder if that was more the "good reason" element of it. Francis has been wanting to slow down for a long time. Then Rick became increasingly at risk. Both have admitted at times in latter years that the high energy element of the shows is the difficult bit for them. Rick used to deal with it better, because he was strong, but that was before his health started breaking down. As far as we know here in the Fan world, Francis had some health problems years and years ago, and started to clean up because of it, ie he heeded the warnings, Rick didn't until it was too little too late.

But the first bout of Acquostick (too many letters I think, but hey better than too few ) was all seated. I think this may have had Rick's situation at the back of it. When they did the gig in Hyde Park and others, without Rick, they played Aquostic standing.

I wonder where Rick was in all this. He made his pitch with "I'm a rocker". He undertook the tour. He was supposed to be on the mend. Even after his near-death, he was planning a future in which performances did feature, just not full touring. (And not with Quo.)

(The whole I'm a Rocker thing with Rick is a bit spurious. He's lots of things. He did acoustic standards when he was young and still enjoyed that kind of music. But something about the Aquostic didn't gel with him. Perhaps he felt it was too much like a bath chair for him. I get a vibe of that kind. He's done the Rock the Classics thing and enjoyed it, and I'm guessing he saw his future more in that direction. HE must have known, as I think we all know, that the Aquostic direction is not going to be, financially, anything like as successful as the Status Quo direction. So he did not have that incentive to stick with it.)

He may also have finally heeded the warning that his time left was limited, and thought that he would spend it doing some other stuff while looking after his health. Only, he fell into a depression [my analysis from what's been said] and didn't look after his health. He was heading for a brick wall, maybe panicking. He was never going to go quietly with a cup of tea aged 90.

On the one hand I would like to think that if Rick had been like Mick, they would not have planned LNOTE for this year. But someone posted at least two years ago that they had been told by a Quo insider (crew) that 2017 was planned to be the "last year". My guess is that this was the consequence of his heart attack in 2014, which he had nominally recovered from and was cleaning up, but Francis was also tired and it was time to plan an exit strategy of some kind.

So no I don't think "to protect Rick" is the right way to put it. "As a consequence of Rick" might work better. As Clone says, if "protecting Rick" was the 100% purpose, they would have stopped after 2014. But I don't think even Rick wanted that. And he was a grownup (even if only nominally, according to all the females in his family including his mum) so he had to make his own decisions.

Francis has wanted to quit for years. It was in no way motivated to protect Rick

Nope, sorry.
Sceptical side of me says it was just Frame doing what Frame wanted, not for Rick's benefit in particular.

Just to get this straight....

You think Francis Rossi, the man who said he never wanted to do the Acoustic albums in the first place, the man who quit the band in 84 and for the last 6 or 7 years has wanted to quit touring because he was sick of it, the man who has admitted all of this and said all this in various interviews, the man who didn't give a shit about Alan his oldest and best friend....done the acoustic albums and done that tour last winter to protect Rick and keep a band together he has split up on numerous occasions? 

Fucking. Hell. 

Totally agree with the less gigs thing 4th chord.
Just too many tours and gigs imo over the years. Especially at their ages. We fans got far too used to em but it just got too stale because of the quantity imo. And the staleness and regularity led to Some long term fans who followed them around to become frustrated ! Bored !
I know some will disagree but if they had only toured every 2 or 3 years with only selected dates I think we all would have enjoyed it that bit more. Look atbpeople like the Stones. They still have 50 th Anniversary tours etc..but fans clamour to see them as they do it irregularly but quality gigs !
I absolutely detest band who go inactive for years and then suddenly it's their 30th Anniversary and a tour s announced. Think that is cheating the fans more but the fans lap it up as it's still fresh !

The basic facts is Money, both Rick and Francis needed it and it looks like Rick may have needed it more than Francis. That's why they were contiunally touring and doing gigs like Turkey. Good money spinners, Yep they may have sold more doing FF but some hardcore fans had already voiced dissenstion about doing the 2nd tour after saying the first was a one off.

There was a chance that another FF tour would not have made much more money than a ordinary tour. So with the rumblings between Alan and Francis happening again, Rick having a bit too much sherry that got knocked on the head.

That 2014 heart attack did more damage to Rick than he let on I think. However he needed the money so the LNOTE tour was announced to pack in the crowds, which it did unfortuantly it was too much for Rick and the inevitable happened again. That changed the gameplan and the band had to carry on without him. Rick needed the money so the PLC project was spoke about however sadly then the worst happened.