They're treating the switch to the new forums as a second chance which I don't necessarily have a problem with.
However posters like our friend and a certain poster in the Dragon Age forum have certainly abused that and gone back to doing exactly what got them banned in the first place.
I wouldn't say it's a second chance, per se. Banned accounts from the old BSN are still locked, and they've even added the crap where you can literally access nothing if you're banned, no matter how long. It used to be where you couldn't access things like groups, forums, and a few other social things, but you could still get messages and comment on people's profiles. Now, you can't do a thing. You get banned, and you're locked out of everything. You can't even log out of your account. The only thing you can do is get on a different browser and look up stuff, and access a second account if you have one.
Plus, some posters that have been kicked are kept out. When Auld Wulf came back, he was gone in less than an hour. The mods don't forget everyone.