Thanks for writing this. Let me try to address the key points directly.

I'm talking about shadowbans and how they're applied, seemingly arbitrarily.

We need an alternative to the shadowban, yes, but there will always be cases where it's imperative the spammer doesn't realize they've been caught, else it's an arms race we'll never come close to winning. This is what the vast majority of shadowbans are used for. We're developing the alternative ban, though, which will notify a user and include some kind of cool-off period.

I'm talking about how default subreddits capriciously apply their rules to suppress discussion of massively important legislation.

Is this about TPP?[Yes it was] Which communities? I just want to be sure we're talking about the same thing. The core problem here is with defaults, which I'd like to get rid of, but don't have a great plan for at the moment.

I'm talking about how admins only apparently reply directly to people that support them, rather than engaging with the community as a whole.

That's a fair point. Where in particular could we have done better?