All fair points but I think they have been fortunate to have had cheerleaders in the media and at AFL house which has meant most decisions here have not really been under the scrutiny that they should have been.
We still have the issues of:
Destruction of the evidence (spreadsheets etc) required by the AFL investigation and subsequent ASADA and Worksafe investigations. (Governance wrist slap can't cover this)
Tampering with witnesses, financial inducements for evidenciary stances/change of stance, refusal to sign statements for financial gain.
Worksafe penalty being embarrassingly inadequate. The $200K fine equates to less than a 6K fine per endangered employee. And considering each employee's safety was breached with each injection, this may equate to as little as $6 fine per injection, but we'll never know, see first point.
None of the above has really been addressed and:
To top all of this off they will benefit from their year of punishment by receiving an enhanced draft pick order. They should be at the end of each round as it was in all reality a self inflicted wound and artificially lowered ladder position not reflective of their true list strength requiring the legup that real cellar dwellers are entitled to.
But yes the Essendon players did get a year off for the most blatant and systematic team game drugging issue in Australian (world?) sport history ever uncovered. Well, the ones that were left did.
Edit: My last paragraph is a bit meh/crap but I'll leave it in