You can no longer buy store permits with NX credit.

I'd bet it's to encourage overbuying. A store permit is 1800 NX. But none of the cards cost anywhere near that amount. They come in increments of 10, 25, and 50, if I recall correctly. In that context, it's easy to see why Nexon would want to discourage NX credit, since credit allows the player to purchase -just- the right amount of NX he/she needs at a given time, which generally means less money in Nexon's pocket.

Or maybe this really is just a jab at gold farmers. On a similar note, has anyone else noticed that Nexon's measures against botters tend to hurt average players most? The "breathing" mechanism; removing Duey; ruining the MTS with taxes and finally scrapping it altogether; the whole "you stop attacking if you're spamming your skill for two minutes" thing -- and now, supposedly, this. Maybe that's why the game's been a laggy, buggy, unstable piece of pomegranate lately; maybe it's to deter hackers from playing it. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

Everyone abused that. Pet with autopot and you'd bot like crazy; one of the old "super legit" guilds that I joined back then did that. Oddly enough, they're the same people that lead the one I joined with my Evan last month. HS mules that just needed to leave a rock on their HS button while you grinded for hours and hours and hours and hours? Anyone with two computers or able to log twice from the same PC would do it. I don't know about the other things you mention, but that one hurts everyone because almost everyone abused it.