Georgia School Funding Suit Dropped

Joshua Mayes sends word that the 50 district wide rural school funding lawsuit in Georgia has been halted, at least temporarily. The districts did not like the new judge that was assigned to the case (the new judge was a former chair of the local Republican party). 

My question is why drop it at this point? The case is already 4 years old and these school funding suits are always decided on appeal and usually at the state Supreme Court anyway. While I know it looks bad to lose at the trial court level, the trial court judge is not the one you need to convince in the end. Just seems like an awful waste of 4 years worth of effort to start over in a new venue. I get the reasons, but not sure that outweighs the cost of starting over.