This is good post!
A few things:
1.) I think people got thrown for a loop with Testoboost because of the name. To be clear, steroids introduce synthetic hormones into your body, Testoboost 'supposedly' boosts your bodies natural production of testosterone. I say supposedly because I've spoken to someone in the bodybuilding community who say Testoboost is a marketing gimmick.
2.) Heard AlSal speak at a clinic a long time ago where he spoke openly about using medical science. I also heard a speech from someone who was once a USADA board member, worked at the NTC and knew AlSal well. He stated AlSal studied doping and was aware of the effects of steroids, epo and had a good idea of which athletes were doping. AlSal knew the Africans' where doping long before it was being talked about. In the early years of NOP, AlSal consulted with USATF and USADA on several occasions to make sure he knew what he could and could not do. Call that trying to figure out a legal way to dope or whatever you want, but there is a reason why NOP and it's athletes after years insinuation and investigation have not been busted and that's because AlSal never crossed the line.
3.) Can't say I know Gatlin personally, but I have spoken to him briefly a couple times and had a long conversation with him in 2008 or '09. I won't recount the entire conversation, but the main points where he knew what types of times he ran before doping and the type of training he was doing after doping and knew for a fact that he did not need dope to run fast. He was about 15 pounds overweight at that time because he was only a few months removed from an NFL tryout. Even after being out of the sport for several years, he felt he would be running sub-10 as soon as lost about 10 pounds.
Although he was still sort of sticking to his story about malicious/inadvertant use of dope, he was clear about not making a conscious decision to dope, but choosing to be naive and not asking questions because perhaps he didn't want to know the answers. He talked about how easy it is for someone to fall into the trap of believing everyone else is doing it, not thinking for yourself and just going along with the group. Gatlin was clear about the damage he had done to his family, himself and the people who supported him and he wasn't coming back for money, but he wanted to make amends and show his gifts where natural. Btw, this was just a casual conversation in the bleachers of At&T stadium with someone he barely knew...he was inadvertently and truefully explaining what he did. Anyone who knows Gatlin will tell you he is not this natural-born-cheater evil person a lot of people think he is. - Good people make mistakes too.
4.) I am still weighing the positives and negatives in how doping is handled by the LRC. There have been athletes called out first on this board who later got busted. However, I have also seen athletes called out for no reason other than a good performance or because they are a part of NOP for example. Perhaps the best example of this was when Treniere Moser pulled out of the 2013 WC with an injury. People on this board speculated she was dodging drugs testing when in fact she had an injury and was drug tested only a few days earlier. I found out from someone that she devastated when she heard people were insinuating she was a drug cheat. To be labeled dirty when you are clean, hurts.