It's amazing to see how this scenario is playing out exactly as described:
http://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-may-headed-bankruptcy/There's absolutely no reason for Mt.Gox to have these kinds of delays. I was really optimistic about Gox being able to recover but there is no going back now. Processing withdrawals will result in a bank run in which case they'll be out of business. Not opening btc withdrawals will result in the price going close to zero, in which case they are effectively dead as an exchange.
I have no stake in Gox, no money, no btc so i'm not loosing anything but i'm invested in Bitcoin. Up until a few days ago i was hoping for Gox to fix their issues so the markets would stabilize. Now i can't help but wish this company would close for good and let everything go back to normal. It will crash the price (temporarily, i hope). But at least we can then move on. This is like the Sword of Damocles hoovering over Bitcoin and it's hurting the comunity as a whole.
If we make the assumption that the BTC being sold at Mt.Gox is made up, then it impossible for Mt.Gox to even allow BTC withdrawals. That would create a massive short squeeze.
Meanwhile, Mt.Gox has exclusive ability to send BTC out and receive fiat in. What this allows them to do is to acquire real BTC from panicking customers and sell them in another exchange for a 300% profit. The fact Mt.Gox is still insolvent after having days of this arbitrage opportunity available to them tells us how badly their finances may acutally be.