Interesting write up, I have hired the bot service that the splinterlands team works with yet i have them all in bronze with very few cards that I am removing asap.  My guild members comprise of big and small players and they all appreciate the bots as they are predictive and easy to beat helping anyone get up in the ranks more easily.  My bots grind me 0 DEC, If I had them grinding up in higher tier then I would agree with everything in your post yet I started putting cards on my spare accounts until I realized the rental market makes much much more income.  Anyone running a bot at high levels is draining the reward pool yet leaving profits in the rental market.  If they all quit botting and rented then rentals would go down a bit possibly so I can see advantages to eliminating them somehow and would not be against it.  I keep mine running cause again many players say they enjoy having many easy wins yet still considering shutting them down after this month.