A friend said this:
Hey guys,
I was walking around the house with a lollipop today and suddenly, out of nowhere, Dad sees me and says, "Hey! No lollipops allowed in this house!" I was not aware that I could not eat lollipops because for 3 months, Dad had been aware that me and all of my friends (almost 11,000 of them) had been eating lollipops right in front of him and he had said nothing.
Right after giving me a warning, Dad proceeded to rifle through all my stuff and take all my lollipops. While he was at it, he took away some other candy too, even though he'd said he was fine with that. In fact, it wasn't even after the warning; he looted me AS he was saying it, before I had time to react and put the candy away.
Then he told all my friends that I was a worthless fatty and gave them special "NOT A FATTY" badges, even if they were, in fact, fat from non-lollipop candies.
Don't you hate Dads?
No one really cares about the lost items. It's the fact that their "cleansing" was imprecise, came months and months after they'd been aware of the problem, only targeted the third-party idlers, and came bundled with an official "YOU'RE BETTER THAN OTHER PEOPLE GO LAUGH AT THEM AND CALL THEM CHEATING FAGGOTS" T-shirt.
I'm well aware that valve has every right to do whatever they want within their games. If they wanted, they could, today, declare rocket-jumping a bannable offense and ban everyone who had ever done it.
There is a difference between "have power to" and "can do without being a dick."
I wouldn't have minded losing that pile of ubersaws I've accumulated. Losing my legit flare gun makes me a little sad.
The worst part by far is the huge storms of trolls that've appeared to say "CRRRRY SOME MORE WORTHLESS CHEATER DEAR GOD HOW COULD IT NOT BE OBVIOUS THAT WHAT YOU WERE DOING WAS DICKING I HAVE NO PITY FOR YOU WHATSOEVER" and, of course, the fact that they have an official valve-stamped piece of evidence saying "You're right! You are better than them! Taunt them! Make them cry! Spread suffering!"