Black Hats get their reputation for a reason, they are willing to do things that not everybody feels comfortable with. The whole good and evil comes from the idea that White Hats are for the long term, they care about their content and on itself it should be kind of results SE are trying to fish for, while black hats get the reputation of cheating, as in making sites that have nothing to do with what the user is searching for and still get them to be a result by being unscrupulous when it comes exploiting anything they can to give them the advantage.
You asked in your blog who would it benefit to follow Google guidelines. Then you proceed to say how because Google is not good it justifies Black Hatting as not doing anything illegal and immoral.I don't think it is about throwing Google a Middle finger, or believing they want to help you from the kindness of their hearts. Of course, they are a business looking for themselves but they also need to keep a positive reputation, in order to do so their search engine needs to bring relevant results. The whole thing started because people were cheating the algorithm. The original parameters were to pick relevant sites, but the quality descended because people with parked sites and tons of links caused to artificially inflate the presence and relevance of their own site. That's the whole point of black SEO making the SE think your web is more popular and relevant, therefore a reliable source, to bring in.
The reason Google keeps changing is because people keep trying to find shortcuts to get their place out there. If you think Black Hat came after Google started changing their policies or that Black Hat doesn't affect the algorithm because it keeps changing then I think you got it backward, since all the adaptions Google makes is in order to maintain the relevant content and weed out those bad practices. Now things that used to be "good" have become suspicious, and it is not a coincidence.
No. I don't think it is ever going to change. Looking for shortcuts and making excuses to justify our decisions are part of human nature, empathy and kindness go a long way, but there will be always people willing to just think of themselves and not give a second thought on who they step on or throw down the bus the get what they want. The world is not black and white and with all the changes, I can agree with you in that the Gray hat area is a massive one when even people that are trying to do things the 'right' way can end up doing things that are frowned upon.
In my opinion, it is not about creating content and then expecting the rest to come on its own, whether you go black or white things take effort. Cheating the algorithm is not as easy, especially with google trying so hard to throw curves with every update, and like you said with everybody connected the competition to get your place noticed is suffocating, but as stars in the distances many websites come but few remain long enough to build trust and reliability. It takes years. Nowadays, a lot of people seem to take sips from both sides, getting good content and using a get-to-the-top-results-quick guides that might have them doing the most bizarre things in order to improve their chances.
Overall, i enjoyed the read, so thank you for sharing your blog and your thoughts.
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