iRules Recipe 4: Static Maintenance Page

I have a very simple setup on version 13.0.0, with one virtual HTTP server with a default pool that has a few members. I want to test the irule above by disabling all pool members which should be the right way according to one sentence in the "Analysis" section (we're only interested in the case where there are no active pool members available, either because all available members have been disabled, or because they are all marked down by the monitors.).

However, if I do that a connection attempt to the virtual server will fail as the LTM resets the TCP connection after the initial SYN packet from the client. As I discovered, this behaviour is also described in K86025623, and it is the norm now.

So there is no load balancing decision, and the irule doesn't fire. Does it mean the irule above only applies to versions prior to 13.0.0? If yes, is there a different way to achieve the same result with versions 13 and 14? Or would I have to resort to priority groups, fallback hosts and the like?

Thanks in advance!