I suspect they would still have gone down, Luke. Barney, can you check this out? I am not a mathematician. I think the only question is whether or not the points deductions were commensurate with the club's misconduct, and that is a bit of a grey area because they were determined by an independent commission, rather than on a published scale.
There is no doubt that Macclesfield have been run appallingly, and they don't have any real defence there. Further to being a football club, it is essentially a business which is contracted to pay its employees in the same way as any other employer: Macclesfield have repeatedly failed to do that, causing hardship to staff and their families. It is a shame for their fans, but that is the base line here.
At the end of the day, the problem is that the town isn't big enough to support League football with Manchester nearby, and the club cannot be a viable entity without input from its owner. Macclesfield had the opposite: when the owner either cannot or will not put money in, everything collapses. Ergo, the salary cap.