I don't think their only option was to cover up and lie. I don't know what online poker is going to look like 10 years from now, but it is going to exist, will probably be regulated in some fashion and will be a massive massive market, and rogue sites like AP hopefully will be a thing of the past. I don't think the fact that AP was hacked in some way was the death knell for them. Their obvious lack of concern and integrity is. I would have been far more accepting of a response that was timely and acknowledged the actual evidence instead of sidestepping it. I can only conclude that the conspiracy inside job theory is right or they don't care if their players are getting screwed by a third party, as long as the screwer and screwee paid their rake. Either way, I can only assume that an unacknowledged problem is also an uncorrected problem.
Hopefully, that will be the end of them. as online poker is fighting for legality in the good old USA, the last thing we need is operators whose response is to cover up and lie. Its not like they had much going for them in the first place; now they are just a shady albatross.