The best I can think of is that the explainer language used to justify the extension's removal was just boilerplate language that got copy+pasted here because someone clicked the wrong button. But even that makes a mockery of the review process.

I think "oops clicked wrong button" would be slightly more defensible, but not by much. If they truly rejected the extension for content in it that it does not have, it's hard to see how a human could make that mistake even accidentally. But maybe there's something I'm missing.

True in a way. However, there is a rather large collection of speculation on the Internet that is quite an undertaking to correct. And a large population of people and bots willing to speculate. Also, having once been speculated, each speculation takes on a life of its own. If it gets much more substantial, forget Skynet, we're busy creating Specunet and its sidekick Confusionet -- an insidious duo.