[Threshold]

It is generally a good idea to avoid absolutes like this. Ensuring a level playing field was, and is, indeed part of the motivation behind the banning of performance enhancing drugs. Why? Multiple reasons. First, because some people believe in the purity of the sport and the competition, and thus the level playing field matters to them. This is particularly true for olympic sports. Second, from a purely financial standpoint the people who run sports know that their customers (viewers, fans, etc.) want to believe the sport they are watching is played fairly. That is why things like the Spygate in the NFL or the crooked ref in the NBA are so damaging. Anything that makes the public feel the outcome on the field/court/pitch is compromised unfairly hurts the sport financially, as it hurts viewer/fan interest.

Yes, the health of the athletes is also a factor (as you stated). But you cannot say the level playing field had "nothing whatsoever" to do with it. In fact, many cynical observers of pro sports believe far too little concern is put on the "health of the athletes" factor, and that owners/management only pay lip service to that when their true motivation is maintaining the level playing field they know is crucial to profitability.

It is odd that you so vehemently defend botting when you just encapsulated one of the arguments for banning botting. Inspired by your own words:

People who do not want to bot are faced with a horrible choice: bot when it is guaranteed to have a massive, negative effect on their fun, or choose not to bot and thus guarantee that they won't truly be competitive with those players who do.

Furthermore, people who are competitive with their fellow gamers are not a "psychologically damaged minority" as you called them in another post. Competition is a MAJOR element and draw of RPGs, and MUDs/MMOs in particular.

Why do you think MUDS/MMOs have historically had tons of rankings lists for almost everything under the sun? Levels, points, quests completed, mobs killed, you name it and RPG players have competed with each other for rankings on it. I have seen games where people competed for most deaths, least deaths, best/worse kill/death ratio, most children rescued, most resources harvested, most badges earned, most flowers picked, most epic boss mobs killed, or even most lowly chicks killed. The list of things people will compete with each other over is endless. And obviously if you add PvP to the mix you have an additional layer of competition that makes it incredibly important that you keep the playing field as level as possible as far as leveling up.

So I would suggest you don't blow this off as simply people being irrational egomaniacs. A very large portion of the gaming populace cares about fairness, cares about the "integrity" of their accomplishments, and enjoys competing in a (mostly) fair way with their fellow players. And yes, players draw a very real distinction between the advantage someone has when they can play 20 hours a day and an advantage someone gains by running a bot while they watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the other room.