Even if the wish is not for what I suspect it it (which I doubt) Allowing a permanent squelch for an account also would likely add a permanent squelch for a specific player. Doing that would ostracize any player from the community by popular vote. Even if the reason for muting was minor. Do some players deserve this? Perhaps, but giving that control to a group of players is not a good idea and leads further to my witch hunt comment.
How so? Is it not a bit like that now, with the report feature?
If a player is reported enough times, by his peers, there are consequences. There are also checks and balances (such as appealing to HTC after a mute) that keep the function from being abused.
It is not a witch hunt at all. There is no pretext of safeguarding the welfare of the public. It would be the comunity, at large, voicing their opinion about the type or volume of garbage they are willing to be subjected to.
For HTC, it is always going to be about the bottom line. Whatever is best for business is what is going to dictate their decisions on these types of matters. They are, after all, a business. ROI is king.
Would it be a loss of potential revenue if it were to be known that AH2 is a game that you can get booted by your peers if enough people become tired of your horse-crap or would it attract a higher caliber of player knowing that they would not have to be subjected to an XBox-esque cess pool?