Lafiele

There were under 200 bans.

Every single person who got banned knew it was an exploit.

Saying they should have just taken the items away and not banning is like saying if we capture a thief, we should take the money they stole away and let the thief back onto the street. (i.e. exploiters will keep exploiting and more people will keep exploiting if they know exploiting will have NO negative consequences. Why not do something with zero risk at all?)

Playing the trading post is not an exploit. Big money is made off masses of dumb people. monopolizing wouldn't work if the demand didn't match the supply. For example, a smart person would understand what an items real worth is and would only buy below a certain price. A desperate or a dumb person would buy an item regardless of the price. Sadly, the majority of the world in game and in the real world are full of dumb people.

Yes, it was Anets mistake for letting in this exploit, but no game is without bugs or exploits. How they handled this was perfect however. As I have mentioned above, if they didn't show the exploiters the consequences, people would just keep exploiting, thus promoting an environment which strongly promotes exploiting. So with any new patch, the game would be concentrated on finding the exploits before everyone else and getting ahead. It's like a society without law and police force, it would be in chaos. People would rob and kill as they please because they know there is no one who can stop them. Why work hard when you can steal someone elses hard work? Humans are horrible creatures, we'll kill our own for the sake of our own selfishness and greed. Therefore, the banhammer was a necessary and good thing. When I see people defending this action by Anet, I wonder if they were the ones banned or they exploited but got away and want to be able to continue exploiting in the future.

People like to blame magic find but it's really bad players which ruin the effectiveness of a group (communication, listening, taking advices, I've had people yell at me and refuse to do it just because I was suggesting a skill they can use during particular fights). I have no issue if people want to run MF since most of the dungeons are easy enough to do so anyways.

Bugs exist but everything written above is overstated completely.

Try http://gw2lfg.com/

It works really well. Will shorten your LFG time significantly

There is a hotkey you can set to quick switch to town clothes though.