I don't think it'll be too difficult to single out the level 50s who experienced massive valor rank gain in a short period of time. They do monitor those things. They'll look into it, take action, but they won't announce what they did or to whom. That's how it works. They did the same with the credit dupers. They investigated, banned where necessary, and went about their business.
And to the original post: How would the developers go about fixing population imbalance?
And the article was correct: There are more battles in Ilum now. Before the patch everyone just traded points and left, there was little or no PvP to be had. Now people are fighting.