Punish versus reform is actually quite an old debate on what approach is the most efficient to deal with prisoners in the real world. Most of the arguments used there actually apply here aswell and the most notorious example would be ABC, but I'll get to that later.
Punishing users for their actions and hope they learn their lesson by the time their ban has expired is quite a valiant and just approach according to many people. If they did x they should have known the consquences thus deserve the full punishment right? But in actuality its very inefficient and mostly causes players to bypass since they themselves doesnt agree to the ban nor the severity of it which causes a downward spiral of bypassing>banning>bypassing>banning etc etc. Considering how easy it is to bypass its to no surprise its so normal and there isnt really a whole lot we mods can do about it.

Some might say they deserve constantly getting banned for this but the reality is that no one actually wins, not the community, the moderators or the player himself. Giving people the benefit of the doubt and actually giving them a chance to reform is the way that might seem illogical at first, but actually produces results if you look past the notion of "justice to the victim/everyone must be punished fully" etc. Innocent untill proven guilty is the norm and should be that way, regardless if someone have cheated tons of times in the past and they should also get a warning first in the hope that they improve(if its in redhearts).

The "punish directly" approach only yield one good reaction from the perpetrator. Either they take the ban and come back to the site as a new user or they just bypass directly. Most users choose the later option for obvious reasons.
If we on the other hand approach with reform in mind and give them a shot, regardless if they cheated in the past, then the perpetrator have a different choice. The user can countinue to cheat and get banned if they get caught again or they can actually reform and stay unbanned. Now this is a choice that I believe is more attractive for the user in question and will cause more players to actually reform than the "Punish directly" approach. Let me remind you that we're on a gaming website and most people dont take this site as seriously as we might, thus they  might feel that waiting 6 months to play again is ludicrous and way too long, which is problably why most people just opt for the bypass route if they have to and that is something we as mods need to avoid as much as possible, since its nearly impossible to catch someone who doesnt care if they get banned, since they can just create a new account over and over. The sole reason a user wouldnt do this is if they treasure their original account which we have under our as long as the user actually care about it, thus creating more ABC's/weareking.

Holding someone accountable for vios that already expired is also wrong since they expire for a reason. We're stepping over our boundries as moderators and we're quite bias if we keep bringing up past violations and just assume guilt directly. It causes a toxicity in the form of moderators letting their powers get to their head and just ban people on sight due to assumptions and since "the know best".

Of course if the offense is severe enough to warrant a ban it should be dished out but in my opinion it should be used in only the worst cases or repeated actions of said violation. Just dishing out bans makes our job harder and is very counterproductive.