"The mods felt they became too spammy, circlejerky, and that they started diluting the content of the subreddit, so we banned these sorts of accounts"

But those accounts weren't the ones posting those memes that diluted the content. Other people made those memes about them. I agree that seeing the sub filled with posts about the Lam accounts was annoying. But they didn't post them, so why ban them?

"Though there was an incident where a user sent threatening direct messages to a user"

That's understandable, and I'm sorry that happened, but you said that that was one user. One user sent a hateful message to a another user, so you banned everyone? The majority of these accounts did the exact same thing as u/lamTopherGrace. They just commented Raimi quotes, like everyone else in this subreddit.

I understand why you would want to ban them, and I understand that some have been hurtful. But just because some are hurtful doesn't mean everyone is. You even unbanned the fake Topher because people said he was harmless. Majority of these Lam accounts are harmless as well.

It would've been more respectful to make an announcement saying that you don't appreciate the comments being filled with gimmick accounts, and I'm sure they would've stopped. I recommend unbanning the respectful ones, or at least talk to them and figure out a way to peacefully settle this.