the only way to effectively combat bots is to remove the market. ban the people who buy gil. start with a 5 to 10 day vacation for the first offence. its been against the ToS of every mmo since the beginning of mmos.
come down heavily on the buyers, once that gets around, you see far less demand for the bot's product, which will always be the real cash from selling gil. it would be easy for SE, just follow the money. and no one can say that SE does not have the server side data pool to do this. no need for any special client side program, just the will of SE to put their foot down and finally do something aside pay the STF to drink coffee or tea...
