Almost a day late, I know. But here goes:
What precisely have I "circumvented"? Is there something inherently sacred about the TF2 official loading screen, or the urge to display dozens of people standing, screaming, dying, and then respawning for hours on end?
Not to be too much of a troll, but you're taking this way too serious.
Also, you're circumventing the system intended to reward players for playing the game. You're not playing the game, or even using valve software. The game is not running and you're getting shit through the system anyway.
At least idling while in game you're "playing" the game. Valve has no right to tell you
how to play the game, as long as you're using their shit to access their servers to get ingame bonuses.
Sure there was no clear rule for TF2 other than the broad and very vague valve corporate rule about 3rd party access. Sure they also could have used tact for all of this *see my previous post for my sentiments*. But in the end, you circumvented their system in both access(3rd party program logging you in onto a server) and intention(reward for playing the game), and they decided to act against that.
All in all, both sides have handled this badly. Valve for being a dick about it by not solving the problem within a reasonable timeframe(drop system and trading) and punishing those who bypassed the problem (but not being a royal dick of removing all items), and the idlers for causing so much damn drama (And don't tell me you're pissed off for what valve did. The only ones who have the right to be pissed off are the ones who got their legit items deleted and never returned. The rest of you idled for a reason and are just mad you lost the hats, as they were important enough to you to idle in the first place.*Which at the time wasn't considered outright cheating, however what was it then? Being clever at sticking it to the man?)
Just to note: I know this post sounds a little bit flaming, but it's not my intention. I would've idled if it didn't appear to be quite unseemly to me. I have nothing against those who idled. Granted it's also just unseemly to me for them to pitch such a fit about the whole deal.
Also to note: This also caused a rift in bunch of pub servers where people ban HALOs or NON-HALOs, as well as descriminating against either side. But this is more to do with that people are dicks and less to do with Valve's actions(beside from making the idler-vs-nonidler debate into something more tangeable, but they didn't start that fire*only added fuel*)