FUNKeLegitimately curious, would those anti-cowmangler prefer it remain banned forever for the remainder of time until it is adjusted by valve? We all know valve will takes months (nay, years) to change it regardless of if it's whitelisted, but at least by having it whitelisted, you can channel that anger of the weapon's balance into constructive incentive for valve to step on the gas with it- whereas before rebalancing the weapon might not have been high on the to-do list.
I can't speak for others but when I'm thinking about weapon bans, Valve's balance is literally irrelevant to me. I don't see any evidence that unbanning and then complaining about weapons actually speeds up development time, particularly with weapons that are not remotely OP in pubs like the cow mangler. The other argument for doing so would be the whole show-Valve-we're-willing-to-work-with-them for potential benefits down the line, but I find that really spurious. I'm not expecting us to be an esport all of a sudden because we whitelist 1 more weapon, so I'm just gonna make my judgement based on how weapons affect the competitive experience at this very moment.