I don't like that Google banned this guy from Google wallet and from buying apps, but I have no issue with them banning him from publishing new apps. He blatantly violated trademarks repeatedly, and he published low-quality apps that by his own admission were identical except for an ID change, and provided no functionality aside from being a YouTube wrapper. He's a spammer.

Why? Because you can't be bothered to

Yes, because it's a waste of time and resources.

One developer, one email conversation, fine, not the largest time investment.

What about all of the other developers in the world?

Especially if this became a recognised method of gaining work?

Suddenly you need full-time staff dedicated to the non-core-business activity of writing "gentlemanly" emails.

It's unworkable.

Noone is really entitled to free handholding from others in the first place, and doing harmful stuff (such as spamming the appmarket with those fake apps) doesn't offer any extra rights, it can only offer extra duties.

It would be harsh to punish someone after the first offense, but if someone is showing both with his words (the "clarification" sent to google) and actions (the other two strikes) that he perceives those actions as socially acceptable, then there's no duty for anyone to reeducate him when just putting him on lifetime ignorelist achieves the required result (protecting appstore customers from such publishers) much cheaper, faster and better.