Anticheat Theory
I have a theory about why Valve has been so "lazy" with the anticheat. Im sure somebody has thought this or said something like this before but I figured I'd say my piece. This theory is either pure copium, or a near-omniscient prediction.
I believe that the reason that Valve has been so absent with anticheat updates or improvements is because it is actually working perfectly as intended. I believe that VAC live is not the final product once it's improved, but that it's simply a stepping stone for something much bigger.
I don't know the inner workings of how it (VAC live) works, but you could reasonably assume that it's always watching or working in the background server-side. While it does function as a deterrent, I believe it's main purpose is data collection. Ive seen matches where someone is closet cheating and not getting VAC'd, but I believe thats on purpose.
I think Valve is working on a next generation AI anticheat and is using VAC live to do this. The reason they've been so quiet about it and have been taking so much crap for it is because they intend to create a broad over-arching anticheat framework (Like easy anticheat for example), and market it as a 3rd party software after using CS2 as a sort of 'guinea pig'.
I think VAC live isn't banning certain cheaters on purpose. Its studying them, how they play the game, their mannerisms, what makes them tick, while also searchingfor 'red flags'. With that data, they're building a whole new way to detect cheaters without needing an invasive kernal level process. Doing it this way also puts then 2 steps ahead of the cheaters, seeing as theyll have to play some SERIOUS catch-up and innovate massively to stay supported and keep their cheats functional.
Thats my theory. It's probably not accurate at all and totally ridiculous, but a guy can dream, right?
TLDR: Valve is lollygagging on banning the cheaters because theyre building and training a next-gen AI anticheat that will revolutionize how games are moderated in the upcoming future.
P.S I am not an AI fanboy by any means, seeing as it's generally stupid, however two things that it does excel at is data collection and pattern recognition (when programmed correctly).