But you're still giving them a sig ban right now, right?
I was thinking about an IRL example, and i found one pretty fast...
This means, for example, cdecker (who is doing very valuable work for the bitcoin lightning network. He used to be active on bitcointalk, but hasn't logged in since 2018, but he still remains very active in the community... Just not on bitcointalk) would see his signature removed, eventough it contains a link that he might still want to show. If he didn't log in, his signature would be lost forever, and if he did log in, he would have to jump trough the hoops to make at least a couple of posts just to gain some merit to see a privilege he has earned restored.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not disagreeing with you completely... I'm just trying to make a point that it isn't black and white... If you make rash decissions, there will be victims. If you use any kind of algorithm, inclusions, exclusions,... it'll be costly (either in dev time, or in moderation time) and there will still be loopholes and victims... It's not something you should do without considering every angle...
There are always going to be exceptions but I see more cases of people like the one I put in the OP than the one you mention, and in that case, I think the merit sources that know him would give him the 10 merits so that he would not lose his signature. Wouldn't you give him some merit so he wouldn't lose the signature? In that case, even I could give him some merit if I had smerits at the time.
And the most probably outcome i predict is Theymos telling us everything will stay exactly the same (but that's just my gut feeling).
We both agree on this.