Failure to Equip - Stalling (L5R rules board)

A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.

A player, 18 December 2014

Here are two different answers from two different threads. They seem to be somewhat contradictory. Which is correct?:

viewtopic.php?f=59&t=111376

Ben Higgins wrote:
Using the referenced ruling to effectively "pass without passing" should take about 2 seconds.
A player announces the Equip action, add Gold to the Gold Pool if desired, then resolve the action to fail.
If it takes any longer than this, the player is likely looking to obtain for an advantage, likely to draw the game out to achieve the result they wish at time.
If that player's opponent is taking and resolving actions that advance the game state, then it would be very hard for a Head Judge to reasonably rule a player was Stalling using this tactic; Slow Play however might be a consideration, depending on the game state.

(emphasis mine)

and viewtopic.php?f=59&t=111582

Jon Palmer wrote:
"Equipping without equipping" deliberately is failure to advance the game state, and should be treated as stalling by judges.

Jon Palmer (rules official), 5 January 2015

Here are two different answers from two different threads. They seem to be somewhat contradictory. Which is correct?:
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=111376
(emphasis mine)
and viewtopic.php?f=59&t=111582

Obviously Ben and I had different takes on how we would rule as a Head Judge. Thankfully, that's actually a question for the Floor Rules thread (and no longer matters, due to the Comprehensive Rules update).