I vowed to myself not to involve myself in the llama drama that is the egos of most people with any form importance, but this is just pure gold and too hard to resist.
The admins see what they need to see because they earned their right to be in that position in one way or another. We, the community, have not earned that right. Hypocritical of me to say it due to past transgressions but that was then and this is now.
What I am saying is the 'demands' made by 'the devs' remind me strikingly of Spaztic and Doj's renegade DPC project to hijack the server or the community will suffer for the admins reluctance to yield to demands.
So what you spend countless hours coding, programming and file editing to develop a game for the community to enjoy? You don't do it to get personal gain or payment (and if you do, shame on you for ultimately cheating) but instead you do it for the love of the game. So remember that while you rest on up there on your high horse, you aren't punishing the admins but instead the wider community as a whole. Like a kid smashing others sand castles because he has to go home.
So I encourage you to stay on strike, quit even. The game may stagnate for a while but eventually others that enjoy the game and the stuff you do will fill your shoes. Hell, I'll volunteer to do what I can and heaven forbid how you would loathe that.
So your friends got banned because of whatever reason, I can imagine it was something long coming considering who it was that was reprimanded. So allow me to propose a grown up thing to do; pull your heads out of the clouds and encourage your friends to do the same. I did my time, learned valuable lessons and have come back to enjoy a game that doesn't revolve around one or two people but a few hundred people who enjoy the same thing.
This isn't your mod to control, it's the peoples who also spent time and effort to create it what it is. Also take into consideration those who have donated generously to keep the server for the rest of us. Are you seriously going to rip them off?