It would be easy to become distracted by the psychological puzzle that presents, or by the cynical, caustic tone you seem to take in your response

You laid all your cards on the table the moment you made up your mind to comment (and more so because you chose to dredge up a months-old comment in the process). Don't blame the other players at the table for playing off your hand. ;)

Now, back on topic -- and perhaps something additional to discuss with your mod buddies -- but isn't a suspension already a warning? So, in a nutshell, you've all been warning people that you're going to warn them further. A two or three day suspension is nothing but a slap on the hand, but it serves multiple purposes:

1. It gives a person pause to consider their actions and the consequences. It's a clear warning that they've broken the rules, and that further infractions will result in more severe penalties.
2. It gives them time to "get angry" but also time to cool down afterward. Far fewer rant threads, snarky forum comments, and the like.
3. It keeps the shit-storm to support tickets (where it belongs) and off the forums. Bringing it back to the forums should lead to additional suspensions. That people even think the rules in someone else's house are "up for discussion" is beyond me.

Believe me, I get why the rules are left open-ended and everything is handled case-by-case. I also believe that's the best way to handle things on a forum such as this. Everyone thinks they're more clever than the guy next to them, and will always try to find a loophole to exploit the rules to their advantage. The more specific the rules get, the easier finding those loopholes becomes. When they get called on the bullshit, they'll have a dozen excuses, play the semantics game, quote the Guidelines and their own interpretation of them, and play whatever bleeding-heart cards they're holding. Hell, I've even seen one fellow claim you folks were "disabling the disabled."

I've been telling you guys this same thing for months now (years, actually, dating way back to when Wallister, Chicken, and Mully were battling it out). You saw (edit: recently) how well those verbal warnings worked out with people like Superfabs, JustArchi, and LostSoulVL. The more "popular" the person, the more people are going to back them up, regardless of whatever rule they might be breaking.

Rules are rules, and should apply to everyone equally. Until that happens, support isn't going to get any respect around here.