I have never, and would never, defend myself on the basis of "freedom of speech". I have reasonable grounds for believing that people made knowingly false claims, or knowingly supported false claims, in return for government $. I don't have to be correct; I just have to have had reasonable grounds for making the accusation.
But as I said, no one, least of all me, wants to or will go to court over any of this. The dollar amounts just don't justify it, nor does the potential damage to anyone's reputation (I would bet).
The point all along has been to expose the truth as far as possible, so that the stakes are raised for anyone trying something like this in the future (and this group has become pretty notorious over the past few years when it comes to promoting the interests of its athletes and program at the expense of the sport community as a whole-- it does not play well with others, to say the least!).
There is so little public money for sport that we need to ensure that the playing field for winning it is absolutely level. What you call "intelligently making use of holes in the system" I see, in this case, as akin to doping to win a few hundred bucks in a local road race.
Both instances involve exploiting flaws in a system (no testing in one instance and the possibility of "bending" the rules in the other), and both involve taking small sums of money at the expense of people who are attempting to play by the rules (and getting to follow your own seasonal racing plan while everyone has to go to the expense and hassle of making sure they run the requisite championship events IS an advantage when it comes to winning this funding and optimizing one's performance at the same time).
That you think asking simple questions and connecting the dots on this is so terribly brave says rather a lot about how it is allowed to happen in the first place. People like the SR leadership just love the fact that there are plenty of timorous people like you in the world. I can assure you, while you are thinking "prudence" they are thinking "chump".
P.S. I'm pretty sure I know who you are. But, don't worry, I won't out you.