Not to beat the topic to death, but in my opinion if there wasn’t all this B.S. associated with the situation action should have been taken. The way your explaining the rules it’s ok for members to harass other members via rep and PM because it isn’t out there for everybody to see initially. Just my opinion, but if a member is the recipiant of an offensive message in the form of a rep or via PM he/she should have the right to make the offending comment fully public and request appropriate action be taken against the offending party.
just my .02 though