I also view this post from RapGenius as a kind of a PSA.
They used the reasonable doubt argument, and won, they could have kept quiet about it. But, they let people know that others could appeal on reasonable doubt too.
Which is commendable!
Unfortunately, the underlying message some people miss when they feel this is about bashing RapGenius is that it is not.
The outrage is against Google. More specifically about 3-4 things:
1. Google has penalized sites for way lesser, and refused to reconsider, even when reasonable doubt was jarringly obvious (ex. some sites affected by panda/penguin algo updates targeted towards content/blog farms were penalized for as less as having similar posts type of intra-site linking as all content farms were using it)
2. Google will never apply this reasonable doubt argument for anyone in the future, unless they have friends like the investors at Andreessen Horowitz.
3. Google has given no indication on how they modified the algorithm for this special circumstance, the question that people are thinking is more in regards with if this was a team decision, or an individual's special favor.
4. It's a slap on the face for all white hat SEO professionals, webmasters and founders who have been burned by Google's no bullshit policy. Again its not about the policy existing, that's just a fact everyone has to work with. It's because now enforcement is clearly optional dependent on connections.