Atmays, i have no problems with you and i personally believe that you don't hack, and i know that you would never rat out your friends and that you have to stand up for them. The primary reason for the grace period is not to save or give hackers a break, but to attempt at keeping this game alive.
If half of the community are hacking then the sooner that half are cut off the better. No community is going to attract commitment when cheating becomes wholesale.
Commitment to the game takes effort. But players of low character who cheat to get ahead short-circuit that effort. How committed are they then to a game which they excelled at by exploits rather than effort?
And players of high character don't want to put the effort into a game that is artificially slanted against them due to cheaters.
I am sorry that you don't support somebody trying to clean up this game.
How does it clean up the game to turn a blind eye to hacking?
Now if your concern is that too large of a portion of the community is already hacking, and to clean up the place would destroy it--then what is really left to save?
Sometimes the cancer is inoperable. If all that is left is cheaters then we are at that point.
I doubt that the numbers are currently that high. But there is only one way to see. Cut out the cancer, and see if the body lives. Otherwise the cancer will just keep growing.