User blog comment:SonikFan112/Now I'm Scared/@comment-1489276-20101021225308/@comment-396366-20101022011205

Deleted articles can always be restored by administrators, and banned users can be easily unbanned. Also, 900.500 probably wouldn't even know or care that he was unbanned.

Those would seem more damaging initially, but recovering from mass-banning and deletion would take less time.

I believe PTSN wasn't too stupid as he realized we'd be anticipating mass-banning and deletion, and decided to try something else.