I think it's more of a case by case issue. Perhaps some folks tried to give Freebitco.in some more time to prove that they are not actually scamming anyone but just going through a rough patch after all those years

If one was to go by your no-nonsense preventive approach then the likes of Bestchange would be labelled as scammers as of now with various red tags and flag supports, but they did prove people who were quick to tag them red as wrong.
So Freebitco.in being an old brand, i think members just tried to be lenient to them.