They falsify the statistics (we're not a community of
16 thousand)
They surely do have impact on search (because of the
namespace)
But most of all: This "problem" will scale. In a year or so we'll be facing 10 thousand "Zombies" and so on and so on.
We will have to do something about it, the only question is when.
I think the name space is the most important of those you mentioned. Is it hard to choose a name for a new monk nowadays? If someone mighty could gather such statistics from Monastery logs, that would be interesting.
I don't thinks those zombies have significant impact on searches. And the statistics figures you render are not false, they're ... eh ... statistics. Anyone making bold clauses about the size of on-line community based on the total number of registered users lies. Meanwhile the wonderful Perl Monks Statistical Page already deliver workaround, as you yourself note in the original node :)