After reading through the posts in this thread. My thoughts are this...

Yeah, the hacking was wrong but in this scenario this user helped SE fix an apparently large exploit. SE should be grateful it was brought to their attention because said user in question did the right thing choosing to report it. When those blanket bans went out and this user subsequently got caught in it for following the directions that a SE GM gave him after his report (i.e storing the items/gil in a safe place and not using/spending them with no further communication as it all sat on a retainer), it should have been reviewed/lifted pending any further account activity for his original hacking to discover the exploit (i.e temp ban). There should have been no run-a-round via support in such a clearly documented case.

This was obviously an exploit beta testers/game testers didn't find regardless of if it was there during beta or popped up somewhere down the line; subsequently once SE was notified of it they pushed a fix out. Going forward this leads to the question of how does SE intend to correct those types of exploit scenarios if their players that find them are too afraid of severe negative repercussions to report them; it could lead to a very broken/buggy game. Is that really what you want SE?

While the response from the original GM involved on pg. 3 of this thread was appreciated there is absolutely no reason why, after going through several official channels, it should have taken creating this thread (3 pages in) to get an official un-canned response regarding this issue. It also sure shouldn't take an additional 3+ months going forward of 0 communication from SE to the involved party(ies). It's really not hard to send a communication that says something along of the lines of "we're still investigating", "yes you're permanently banned here's the reason why" or "after further review we have lifted your ban" to the party in question.

I honestly think that since it was such a big exploit the developer team that fixed it should have sent a "Thank you for making FFXIV better" style communication to the player involved and going forward, if the account gets unbanned, they owe this player a hefty apology for the grief that they caused.

I really hope that Mister Sirs gets his account back - until that point this whole scenario leads me to believe that SE would rather have a game riddled with exploits and flaws in their system rather than doing right by any players that find, report, and due to lack of communication/direction, get "caught" by their automated ban hammer. Poor show SE... Poor show.