nothing stops a team from asking for a clarification though. if i am correct about the timeline, this started with RP asking for a clarification either about what Renault were doing or because they wanted to know if they could develop along those lines as well.
playing devil's advocate a bit here...but perhaps Renault were intentionally looking for performance within the grey areas and they just got caught.
i get Abiteboul's point and maybe he is correct that teams should not be sniping at each other like this and the the rules body should be constantly checking the legality of the cars without the need for a team to instigate such investigations.
but the unspoken part of his statement (or flip side of it) is that under the current rules (however antiquated he thinks they are) if Renault were working on an area
'based on speculation, on imagination' then surely this is more a reason why Renault should have sought out clarification prior to following/applying this development path.
anyways Renault is a desperate team at the moment.