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"This kind of stuff happens in live games all the time," says Annie. "You just don't hear about it as much. That's why it's important for players to know how to spot cheating..."
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What is relevant is that it is important for the site to be able to spot cheating. These test should be running whether or not there are player complaints, but they better be used when there are complaints. It is much easier for the site to test for this type of information leak than for the players. Absolute Poker failed in its responsibility to do that, even when the cheating was ridiculously blatant so that it was convincing to almost all serious poker players just from the hands that made it to showdown.
Absolute Poker repeatedly lied and stonewalled about this, tried to cover things up (through changing registration information just after it was posted here, and by asking sites to remove unflattering threads), and threatened some of those who were speaking the truth with legal action (in AP's statement and Seif's comments--Seif has appeared to state the official AP line throughout this scandal). They said things were impossible that were obviously possible. If they didn't know something was wrong, their security department is not functioning, and any executive responsible for that incompetence should be removed.
Of course, you can't expect an unbiased statement from a spokesperson for UB/AP.
It is, nevertheless, a bad idea for them to try to say that it's the players' responsibility to detect cheating. Although that position might seem to help them deflect responsibility in the short run, if everyone were to believe them, it would greatly decrease the amount of play. People would be too suspicious to play for substantial stakes, and they would get swamped with false claims of cheating against players who were just lucky, unlike this case.
I'd be surprised if other sites which take the responsibility of holding other people's money more seriously didn't have automated detection systems that would have identified these cheaters long before the player complaints. I'd bet that PokerStars will mention that they implemented such a system years ago when this scandal starts to cool off, and
Steven Levitt mentioned working on such a system for a poker site. Apparently, pretending to take security seriously was much higher on Absolute Poker's priorities than actually ensuring it.