Oh, this is completely wrong and you should know it. Blizzard HAS done (and will continue to do) what they can to combat this behavior. They have to investigate how it's happening, and then find a way to stop it. Once they do that, they ban a couple ten thousand accounts and we get a patch that inputs the new logic and prices for herbs/ore shoots up into the "OMG BLIZZ Y SO EXPENSIV?!?" realm. And then the botters are gone for a few days/weeks/months until they find a new way to do what they do.

It's a constant cycle, and I think every MMO has to deal with it.

"Blizzard HAS done (and will continue to do) what they can to combat this behavior"

Considering they've been using the same speed and underground hacks for over 2 years now, it seems all Blizzard has been able to do is "ask the hackers nicely to stop".

Bottom line is, it's just not good enough Blizzard.

Unfortunately the speed/teleport hacks function by exploiting a hard feature of the game-- namely that the client tells the server where the character is. So the hacks send a false signal to the server, teleporting the character around the map. Presumably changing this part of the game would take drastic changes and would probably result in more problems than it solves. So it's easier to just look for people exploiting a known vulnerability than change everything and open themselves up to new ones.

I love how you believe that Blizzard hasn't done anything.
Ask Glider how little Blizzard has done.

While the legal tactic they used is a bit shady in my opinion, they set about demolishing a known bot program so they could have a precedent for others. Once they have that in hand, they will go about destroying every company/website/guyinhismomsbasement that dares to try and sell a bot program or writes one for WoW.

Yes, the exploits are annoying, the hacked accounts frustrating, and the victims unhappy, but part of this is the fact that you have idiots willing to pay $10 for some perceived advantage of having some gold in a game.

If anything, the quest + green gem inflation is one of the biggest ways of deterring the gold selling.
"I could spend $15 on gold, or make about as much doing 10 dailies that also get me guild and faction rep. While mining this ore to prospect. hmmm"

"Once they have that in hand, they will go about destroying every company/website/guyinhismomsbasement that dares to try and sell a bot program or writes one for WoW."

This only works in the countries that have similar copyright laws to our own. There are at least 2-3 commercial bots out there hosted in countries that have no such laws and as such will be a pain to take down.

"Unfortunately the speed/teleport hacks function by exploiting a hard feature of the game-- namely that the client tells the server where the character is. So the hacks send a false signal to the server, teleporting the character around the map. Presumably changing this part of the game would take drastic changes and would probably result in more problems than it solves. So it's easier to just look for people exploiting a known vulnerability than change everything and open themselves up to new ones."

No, not good enough.

Nearly all multiplayer clients work that way, FPS as well as MMORPG, but many of them manage to have protection against speed/teleport hacks. You just need some code on the server to check that the requested movement is valid, and if it's not (i.e. you got from point A to point B faster than you should have) then you get kicked.

It's not rocket science. It's simple common sense design. Any server that blindly accepts input from a client without validating it is poorly designed.