@Deb75 I lost my superhost this month. Had a heads up from a contractor but no documentation in hand to satisfy Airbnb's time-frame for extenuating circumstances. I spent a few hours searching for similar places for the guest and sent link, the reservation was 55 days away. The kicker is, had I waited to cancel until I had the actual documentation in hand Airbnb would not have penalzed me, however, it would have been more inconvenient for the guest who would have had far less time to book elsewhere.
I also think a year's superhost banishment and other penalties associated for a first 'offence' is draconian, especially for a host who has an otherwise stellar record – it certainly gives me pause for thought as to how I would handle this in the future. Some hosts suggest contacting the guest and asking them to cancel – full refund, plus pay them the Airbnb fee they were charged out of your own pocket. As far as I am aware guests do not get penalized for cancelling, in fact Airbnb has made it extremely easy for them to do so.
Like you, I have refunded people with unverified broken ankles, mistakes, misunderstandings, and other excuses when I didn't have to. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt when it's not obviously egregious, it's far more preferably to me than viewing everyone with suspicion and as a potential scammer. A decent algorithm could be coded to cater for anomalies instead of Airbnb's me-hammer, you-nails approach.