Dave, you know what you can and cannot say on Y/T. Just imagine what would happen if you woke up one day and thought "you know what....?"
I'd expect them to delete that video. Why should my entire channel get deleted as a result?
Look, you're the youtube guy not me, so don't beat on me for this. I spent an hour going through some of the YT terms of service - in some respects a winding and roving cacophony of litigious projective tests.
Up front I want to acknowledge that you immediately replied, in several places, some mitigation practices (back up your content, post to more than one place). You also, if I recall correctly, suggested a policy of human intervention before a channel was snuffed - ostensibly to avoid a faulty AI trigger. All good stuff.
I read about a strike system
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802032 and if they were adhering to that system in your hypothetical example, then I would expect them to only delete that one video and not your channel and to notify you.
But, I also read that there are certainly SINGLE case violations that can result in a channel being removed.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802168?hl=en&ref_topic=9387060Now, who decides what "severe abuse is" YT or the user? [rhetorical]
What we don't know is why the channel was removed, why the channel was restored, whether there was an email that the channel was removed, whether the removal decision was appealed. Nobody seems to be saying much about those questions.
If he (the channel owner) was a blueberry muffin that looked like a chihuahua to some bad coding, he may not want to go on the offensive about that (blueberry muffins may not want to bite the hand that feeds them).
If he (the channel owner) was ratted out for something that was simply not true, he may not want to go on the offensive about that either.
If it was an "oops, sorry about that", he may feel the same.
As to all the whining about how bad YT is in this thread (and not by you @EEVblog) why isn't there the infamous "if you don't like it, don't use it" or "if you don't like it, start your own" ? All variations on the, "as long as you live under my roof, you will follow my rules".
I propose that the reason is that YT is the biggest game in town and if you want the $$$ and notoriety and audience, that is where you go. If YT is so bad than they will go the way of many others after they have run their course (e.g., AOL).
So, does the whining help make a better product? Does it at least make the whiner feel good?