I found one blue post on world boss griefing and that seemed relevant to Warmane. Didn't find a single piece of evidence that someone was banned from it, but Warmane seemed willing to ban for that. Simply because the blue post was made at the time of that expansion. So it seems timing of the blue post is the question, not whether bans happened. As far as I know anyway Blizzard didn't run around handing out bans to their paying customers all that often anyway.
The question that needs to be answered though is if the game was intended to have 40 man premades dominating battlegrounds and unbalancing these games. We know that Blizzard at one point had raid queue for battlegrounds and removed that. They created a 5 man limit. Logically any method to circumvent that limit would be considered exploiting a game mechanic.
So that being said I don't need a blue post because I can just cite the WoTLK terms of service. "Using or exploiting errors in design, to obtain a competitive advantage over other players". As I've said the issue wasn't prevalent back then, but it is now here apparently on Warmane that seeks to emulate the original game.
Now we look at this blue post from 2007: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ned-blue-posts
It says, "In our continued efforts to support fair gameplay in World of Warcraft and to provide a positive experience for players, we are currently taking steps to ensure fair and enjoyable competition in the Battlegrounds." While this is in regard to AFK players, Blizzard was clearly on a mission to create fair competition in battlegrounds. Would a 40 man coordinated team vs a bunch of randoms be considered fair?
So that's all in that era right? That's the information you have to base your decision off of according to you. But let's look at this "hollow" post and era of when they enforced it in 2012.
Here another blue post: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-losing-BGs-OQ
"Any addon that enables a full, organized Battleground group to queue against a randomly assembled group is creating a scenario where that coordinated group has a huge advantage. That is not in the spirit of the experience we want to provide in the normal Battleground queue. Playing with friends is fun and important, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the spirit of the game nor the fun of others.
The normal Battleground queue is for players to jump in and play against other players in a similar situation. We realize that it's not a perfect system, and we're still looking at ways to improve normal Battleground queues further. Regardless, it's not meant for organized groups to "pug stomp" and get quick Honor. We have built in outlets for players that want to organize--if a competitive, social experience was really the goal, then there are clear ways to achieve that.
The ultimate effect that this kind of queuing has had is to drive players away from PvP. Perhaps it's been a long time since you've been in a random group, but a lot of players will see that they're up against a premade and simply quit. At best, they suffer through it. To an extent premade groups count on this. Heck, one of the popular addons announces opposing players that appear to have rage quit.
Addons aren’t really a viable solution for botting issues, but we do take those issues seriously and we'll continue our work on improvements to the Battleground system, including better ways to deal with botting and other exploitative gameplay."
And then we see here: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...d-Exploitation
The above posts #3 and #5 outlining that players did in fact get banned for bypassing the 5 person premade restriction.
I think they outlined quite clearly the environment they were trying to create. I think the game design was purposeful at that time. I don't see any proper argument that would support a 40 man coordinated team stomping a team of randoms as being fair or be supported by the version of Blizzard that existed back then. If there is a counter argument suggesting otherwise I'd like to see that.
