The people who were banned were, to all appearances, a community of loyal, well intentioned power users working on safe, useful fixes and improvements, in exchange for nothing, for the convenience of all of us-no matter how ungrateful.
I'm not really a modder or much of a mod user, but I've looked into the system, talked to the people, examined some of the (open) source code, etc. What's wrong with some of you people? "I don't use mods, so that means no one else needs them" and "all mods are insecure/enable cheating/cause lag" are completely irrational, untruthful arguments I keep seeing people parroting all over the place.