Pretty much this. If they had said something, anything, during all of it that players would get banned if you continue using it, then maybe they would have had an 'I told you to stop using it and you continued, banhammer now'. But they didn't. Those talking about credibility, they lost all that when they had other exploits and didn't ban those players for doing them! What kind of credibility would they have if they banned for this exploit, but not any of the other they this past year!
This whole thing is a **** show, and I actually really feel sorry for this mess they have to clean up, but really the situation was not handled properly. If this exploit is as terrible as some gamers as saying, they would have done a little something about it, but they didn't, so is it really as 'the sky is falling' terrible as people are making it seem? Probably not.