AllenG,
First off, I'd like to thank you for getting back to me, and for keeping this discussion open and public. I
very much appreciate that.
To the issue of the "sock puppet". If the "Jimfish" account was truly being used as a sock puppet then I understand the accusation. But I didn't see the Jimfish account used anywhere else, so the precedent I see is that creating a test account for troubleshooting purposes is grounds for banishment. Is this really the case? If so, what is the proper procedure for troubleshooting an account-specific problem?
Creating a test account is certainly the type of action I'd be likely to take, and I'd hate for such a basic step to lead to such drastic results.
Again, thanks for taking the time to answer me, and thanks for respecting the community enough to keep such questions public.