Being prepared to be killed and making yourself a target does not mean you have to sacrifice yourself. Really, it makes more logical sense (and thus would have been more likely for Lelouch) to keep oneself alive as a focus for peoples' hatred - as long as they're hating you, they won't hate other people. If you die, they have no reason to hate you any more, only a reason to look back and think "that guy was really evil". Adolf Hitler being dead doesn't stop us from fighting, for one RL example.