Yeah, it was more for users that did nothing or next to nothing. People that contributed a lot or something would of course be left - they're naturally more likely to come back. iirc for The Purge, if your account was well built-up, you'd have to be gone for an exceptionally long time to delete your account - or they just never would. It was mostly the blank or barren accounts that got wiped. Sorry for not making that clear. There were a few bots that did this simultaneously - Cheetahbot, the fastest [it would go across the list more quickly] but least consistent, Pigbot, the middle, and Snailbot, the slowest and most reliable - I remember these the best because the method of how this would be accomplished interests me, heh. The exact methods and criteria the bots used was never revealed, however, as it's more of an under-the-hood thing that the community noticed and tracked to snatch up names, usually for their pets.
As for it not helping, well... Just judging from a few pages of the Members section, it looks like it'd apply to a lot of members honestly.
PS:
^ My neopet is pretty legit awwrite.
Too bad it's actually crying now because I haven't fed it in forever ahaha.
I finally left because I got suspended for saying that some person running a cheating bot was being aided by Jesus.