But have good enough reasons been provided and a final answer ..........?

The final answer was provided two years ago by Joe. Max provided a final, final answer months ago. What part of "no" are you having problems with?

And the illusion (or lie) of an uncensored forum can be maintained

This is a *moderated* forum, and has always been one. If you choose to believe that "moderated" is synonymous with "censored", then by your definition it's censored. Most of the rest of us don't consider moderation to be censorship, because the reason for moderation is not to prevent people expressing their opinions. No-one has ever prevented you expressing your opinions here, have they? The only restriction placed on you is that you are only allowed to express your opinion in one place at once, and that's only after two years of mass-mailing your opinion across offtopic threads.

but The Mudcat Discussion Forum is the part of his site that he has (currently) set aside for the public.

You've missed the crucial qualifier - set aside for the public to use according to rules determined by Max and enforced day-to-day by Joe, Jeff and the moderators. Max only "extends an open invitation" as long as people follow those rules. In real life, private places such as stately homes often extend an open invitation to the public - but if you walked into a park, insisted that they changed the flowers because you didn't like them, and then sat shouting through a bullhorn as a protest when the groundsmen said no, I suspect you'd be turfed out in pretty short order. You wouldn't expect to get away with that in real life, so why do you expect to be able to do it here without consequences?

If Max is happy for the our forum to be now censored and restricted in the way it is now

Again, what part of Max's post did you not understand? And what part of "You too, should bid farewell" didn't you follow?

There is of course nothing stopping you all from leaving the rest of us in peace now

Again, what part of "You too, should bid farewell" didn't register with you? When the owner of the site tells you, with no possible ambiguity, that you're no longer wanted due to your behaviour, most people would take the hint that their opinions didn't coincide with the site owner's opinions. So for you to tell us what you think Max wants for his site is a bit bloody rich, don't you think?

Graham.