Second Chances

It could also be "holy crap our rent-a-cop GMs from Texas were complete idiots and went ban crazy, we better fix this"

Well...here's more likely what happened. As it's pretty much been made clear over the years, permanent bans can't be issued without evidence being collected and filed. Everyone who was banned either was doing something that looked like a violation or had come into contact with someone who was.
Ordinarily evidence is reviewed before a ban is applied, but they said "pineapple that, that takes too long and too much damage can occur in that timeframe. Ban first, review evidence later"

Honestly I'd do the same thing.