Hey stigmata,
You are right on.
The only problem is even if this 2 + 2 forum comes out against datamining it is not going to stop the hypocritical players here at 2 + 2 who have no problem with it, but cry foul on bots.
It is my understanding that the poker sites are powerless to stop programs like Poker-Edge, (a subscription fee program) that basically is a mass dataming program.
The only real solution here is for the pokersites to embrace programs like Poker-Edge truly making this datamining issue go away and put players on a level playing field. The sites could even offer the same information directly to players for a fee if they wanted to. Then if a player did not decide to pay the fee at the site for the information, at least he would be aware of it's existence and be making a conscious choice about the use of it.
The only other option is to go the way of other sites like WPEX and do not provide hand histories with names.
Here are two very relevant threads at 2 + 2 about all this:
Poker Edge discussion
Player Tracking discussion