I think this is a tricky situation. Lets say for the sake of argument that they honestly handled the situation _unbelievably_ wrong as opposed to being deliberately shady. They realized, right before the blog post, they needed to communicate better with everyone.

How differently should they have handled it other than what they wrote in the blog post?

I should acknowledge that my knowledge about the situation is only as deep as this blog post and the post they replied to. No knowledge about their past reputation.

For starters they could offer to compensate those wrongfully booted out because of their failure for costs incurred.

That would go a long way to showing they really care about them, instead of just about their own reputation.

I see this as a salvaging operation, probably at the instigation of the new investor they've found, a way to use the fact that they are in the spotlight to do a cheap 'mea culpa' while getting as much mileage out of it for their own shop. There is no such thing as 'bad publicity', especially not if you can spin it to your advantage by showing what an upstanding guy you are by apologizing in public. But words are cheap.

Maybe I'm too cynical here, but really if they did anything over and beyond simply saying stuff I'd be a lot more convinced this is heartfelt.

I think sometimes people put on a show that they have resources that they do not have and think playing fast and loose with other people's careers is alright as it is only business.

This is irresponsible. And once discovered, we'd do well to not deal with such people.

I would not be overly strict about that, though. It would be ok, for example, to have them make license plates for you.