fair points, in my view (Which rearly matches anyone elses,) the halo was just a bloody joke a small giggle that people who used program are getting pissy over buecase they cant get it and i think value proably did it, to piss them off and i think they sucessed not sure though :\
Pretty much that. Basically they not only took away (many/most/all) hats from the people who wanted them so desperately that they fell back on using idle servers but also added insult to injury for giving the rest a hat for free (and perhaps even a unique hat that they will never be getting themselves).
And frankly that idea has a certain irony I can't help but liking.
The naming "Cheater's lament" was less successful, because I would not call idlers cheaters. That label is unfair and unwarrented, even if it's similar in a technical sense.
As for the percentage mentioned:
The context was that 4.5% were affected by the cleaning. And sure, the percentage could easily have been higher, for a number of reasons (many Deadly mentioned, but also the lack of comment by Valve might have been interpreted as silent agreement to the idle servers, which is still *my* biggest gripe with the whole affair)
And of course is Valve aware of that. They may be declaring "95,5% have stuck with the moral highroad", but the idea behind is actually much simpler: Play nice and get a reward, play nasty and be punished.
Not unlike the way you sometimes have to treat your children. And let's face it, the maturity level of the community in general isn't much above that level.
Don't get me wrong: All this could have - and should have - been handled better, and much of the current situation could have been avoided.
But: While you could of course make this a point of principle, I still can't get over the fact that all this is happening about FUCKING SILLY VIRTUAL HATS, with no further consequence on the game. The issue is by no means worth the time invested in discussing or even arguing about it. I don't know about the rest of you, I would rather play the game than discuss stupid hats ... *shrugs*