I realize it's a highly contested subject. I have some thoughts on this:

I work in business as a living so I am familiar with the importance of new customers. However, screwing over previous customers is not the way to do it. If we're going to come at this from a 'business angle' then SE should accept responsibility for advertising housing as a main feature and not being able to live up to that promise.Due to how it was advertise, we were all expecting it to be more accessible than it is.
It is their own problem that they created and the best business option would be to fix their horrible tech.

Dulling out punishments does not create happy customers. The problem with saying that "it's their fault for not always subbing" is that 'taking the kids gloves off' also has the side effect of preventing past customers from turning into returning customers.