http://i.imgur.com/QYlJuqG.jpg - image from retail vanilla on EU-Lothar. A whole guild/raid getting a single Songflower for their raid which ofc would work for tubers, windblossom and NDB. In other words: Doable and not something you got banned for back in the days. It got fixed later (2.0 or after) to make it only grant one player the items/buff.
http://wow.curseforge.com/addons/project-1384/ - An addon that was made during retail vanilla that even had a in-built countdown timer feature so everyone could gain the benefits from the felwood interactable plants (Tuber, NDB, Songflower, Windblossom).
In other words: People even made an addon to get the stuff together. You think someone would be dumb enough to make an addon for the public back then to exploit? Use common sense.
http://www.wow-pro.com/node/570 - guide from 2006 (retail vanilla). Also mentions the following:
- Code: Select all
*TIP*
If you are fast enough, you will be able to pick Whipper Root Tubers, Night Dragons Breath or Windblossom Berries, two times at each spawn. All you have to do, is to right-click on the plant, pick, and then right-click the plant immediately again. This will cause you're farming time to be reduced drasticaly(maybe not ½, because you might fail sometimes, but still pretty close to 50%, if you do it right)
Intended mechanic or not, calling it "Major bug abuse" is a clear view of lack of information and then going for the gut feeling on what is right or wrong is clearly shown here.
Certainly not something that is categorized as worthy of a permanent ban.
and then you have this certainly: