I'm surprised at the amount of defense popping up in favor of our "Deezy" friend.

Er, well of course you are! I hope you wouldn't have banned him in the first place if you'd thought he might get defended...

the fact is, he used a scripted exploit against the BBS

No, he didn't. If he had been using it "against" the BBS, he would have set the post count to 3,000 from day one. He held the power to destroy this board in his hand, and declined to use it. That makes him a "white hat". Indeed, as the BBS software at no point behaved other than as designed, it arguably doesn't even count as an exploit.

Peter