My concern is that if they let this play out til phase 6. with the bugs going on and exploit.
Just like the MODs free upgrade exploit. Enough people did it where it made no sense for them to ban their entire paying customers. Thus rewarding for bad behavior and then those who didn't exploit it felt pretty crappy that they didn't do it. At this moment, if enough guilds start exploiting it.
What do you think they'll do? Ban everybody? They'll let it slide and its just MOD exploit all over again.
Better to shut the problem down before the phase 6 rewards are issued. and just compensate everybody for their time testing their game.
Regardless the most common sense thing for CG to do is just give out rewards that people would have /might have normally gotten anyways. Less unhappy customers. More happy customers. = CG coming out as the hero. rather than the villain.