No...I think he is banned. I've been suspended before and I didn't get the XS-Banned sign on my profile. If you really piss of the mods or breach the TOS then you go in the 'last chance club'.
Ballz has got the outright ban. Perhaps he screwed a mods Mum up the ass or something, I don't know. but he wouldn't have got banned for this thread. It is something else I'm sure, something he shouldn't have said or done.
I support the theory that there are some mods that move through the forums like ghosts deleting threads they don't like or moving about posts. Then again I could be having paranoid delusions and should shut up now before I get banned.
Certain posts in this thread were just his final strike (hence what HSD put in his sig). It took a fair number of rule violations, each of which was documented and had a PM sent to him explaining why from the warning system panel, over the coarse of about six months or so for him to reach banned status.
If a mod (one that has access to the warning system, whom are few) acts on a topic, it gets logged. If you get muted or suspended, you get a PM. If we don't follow THOSE rules, WE get nailed.
Let it go. This discussion is not about that (but now it's cleared up and you know).