It was typical of the Peerage Law, which calculated value on what was received from a particular territory at the time of the Hanseki-houkan (the return of lands and people to the emperor), although it was still popularly believed that the Ii family were treated poorly by the new government and demoted to hakushaku due to the code of Ansei no Taigoku (suppression of extremists by the Shogunate).
そもそも爵位の基準は版籍奉還の時点の現石が基準であり、「安政の大獄の恨みで新政府に冷遇され、伯爵に落とされた」などというのは全くの俗説である。