Korlath, you can rest assured that there were several people (myself included) utterly disappointed (to say the least) by the actions of Kapleo, who literally started team sanctioning several people in the White sphere, out of the blue, just because he could.
By contrast, when Kapleo was removed from the VEP (for about 2 hours), that was not a sanction, unless you want to abuse the language. You see, when someone is removed from the VEP, the result is that he is not included on the tech targets list anymore (assuming he has tech credit), which doesn't mean he can't do whatever tech deals he can find on his own. The VEP is by no means mandatory for anyone. Being a VEP participant is neither a right nor an obligation, it's a privilege.
As lilweirdward explained, Kapleo's removal was the result of a misunderstanding (for which I take responsibility). At that time Kapleo hadn't received any tech offer for a number of days, despite being on top of the tech targets list, which made me (and others) think that most of the sellers were deliberately boycotting him. That was not the case, as I found out a bit later. What really happened is that he'd previously deleted his nation for a short while, which resulted in some of his incoming tech offers being deleted, plus several forthcoming days of not being able to receive aid after his nation's restoration. However, before realizing what had happened, I felt responsible to make a decision of choosing to either jeopardize the VEP (by continuing to antagonize the sellers by keeping Kapleo on the list) or jeopardize... Kap's well being. So I made the obvious decision (unfortunately based on a wrong premise), and as soon as the mistake was discovered Kapleo's nation was put top of the list, and you personally and your alliance received due apologies, from DLS and myself.
Oh, and one more thing if you don't mind, while we're still on the topic of the VEP. In your rants, you mentioned among other things that we were merely using your people as farms for us. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you had 5 buyers and 7 sellers enrolled. Moreover, for their contribution to the VEP, the UFP sellers received (by Dec-20 when they departed) a number of cash bonuses (in other words, free cash), amounting to the following totals:
54vee $54 mil.
GoddessOfLinn $63 mil.
Jihadi $72 mil.
Joseph Antario IV $18 mil.
Krunker $81 mil.
qncoa1 $36 mil.
ultron90 $90 mil.
Does that seem like we were trying to ruthlessly exploit your sellers? I'm not actually expecting any answer from you. It just saddens me to see you denigrate your ex-partners and the tech system of which your ex-alliance has benefitted for so long. I hope you'll find a better system than the VEP, and more generous buyers for your sellers than ours. And maybe you'll treat them better too, once you're done with them.