I agree with you that the original premise of Polo being in on the wash trading is unlikely, but I wasn't suggesting that at all.
You actually believe the Eth wash trader is paying 100-200 BTC per day (sometimes probably even more than that) just to wash trade? It's obvious Poloniex has made a backroom deal with them because they'd be better off just buying the actual coin to manipulate the market rather than wash trading if they were paying that much.
If he earns more then that, i dont see reason why not.
I don't understand why you did not stated this month ago when was obvious? I mention several times in Monero speculation thread that sudden high volume on Poloniex is suspicious, but did not recall anyone would agree with me. It was seen since all coins got increased volume at same time. and that happened many times. So it was one or a group of traders, working together.
But what you are saying now is something else. And i am not sure how you can prove that. Would they do that and risk their reputation when they were moving to top exchanges, even without this?