If you believe this doesn't already happen, then you and I must be using different internets. Simply by being selective in which aspects of SEO gaming they chose to address, in what order, and to what extent, they are making editorial decisions. If you're working in an industry where search results are already dominated by low-level SEO manipulation (say, maybe, music lyrics?), are you expected to stand by and let Google be the arbiter of if and when that issue is addressed?
> why not speed up the process of meeting them in the middle and focus on legit link acquisition and traffic acquisition strategies...
My guess is that will be the very likely outcome of this whole brouhaha. It would also not come as a surprise to me if this was the goal all along - getting Matt Cutts' attention is hard, until you're doing something wrong.
You seem to know a lot about SEO, definitely more than me. But it feels like you are expressing a criticism that presumes that this behavior has been happening, and has been tolerated, for some time.