I'll have to disagree. You're missing quite a few points here, and pointing to inexistent ones. I may be a Renault fan, but what I'm listing here are facts:
First off, with all the tararam they made in pre-season, there had to come a statement regarding their evaporated championship hopes. Sooner or later. It was probably obvious by China that they won't win the championship, but had the double-decker (introduced at China untested) brought a larger increase in pace, they could've been up there. So yes, now is the time to admit the championship is over. For every team bar Brawn. Nobody expected them to be so fast - Ferrari even thought they had the championship wrapped up before the Brawns came along.
Second, you're a bit quick to say Renault would still be sucking had the double diffuser been outlawed: Fact is, they were just behind Ferrari, so 3rd-best non-DD team. And please, stop with the "Brawn's pace doesn't depend on the DD" - it does. The whole car is full of clever details - but they're all to make the DD work. A high-downforce front wing isn't much use if the rear lacks downforce. All the under-nose aero is designed in order to feed the special diffuser. Things like winglets on the brakes don't bring a tangible improvement, and yes, banning the double diffuser would've:
A) Possibly elevated Alonso to race victory in Melbourne
B) Effectively put Brawn out of the championship, since they themselves said they don't have a competitive regular diffuser, and would need a few races to adapt.
Third, they were safely 4th-fastest in 2007 and 2008. That's better than 6 other teams - is that sucking? Sure, it's not quite the 2005/6 standard, but it's a long shot from sucking. And considering they had a $150m disadvantage on the top three (and on Toyota and Honda behind them), it was quite a feat.
An important cause for Renault's lack of pace in those years is the J-Damper (Inerter), worth 0.3-0.4 of a second: Found with McLaren data on the mainframe (it was a McLaren idea originally), they couldn't implement that part until they issue cooled off - and only by Barcelona 2008 they fitted it, instead of early-2007. Second cause was the engine-freeze: By 2008, they were a good 40HP down on their competitors. After regaining some horsepower and settling the J-Damper properly, they easily eclipsed BMW in the latter half of the season, and were up there with McLaren and Ferrari on raw speed alone - just three tenths down.
In fact, that "sucking" was actually Alonso scoring more points in the last six rounds than any other driver. It was the whole team scoring more constructor's points in those six rounds than any other team. Two victories, one with the aid of pit-stops and one, guess what, on raw speed. Yes, Hamilton did a silly mistake to take himself and Massa out - but no driver could match Alonso's middle stint. Even good 'ole Piquet managed to get 4th, but not before challenging the Kimi-Kubica duo ahead of him; only the lack of grip in traffic, and the resultant graining of the tyres, stopped him from achieving 2nd place.
And last, traction control being the cause? Sure, Renault had one of the best systems... But to say that removing it caused them to suck is laughable. Perhaps you forgot, but in 2007, we still had the system - and yet the Renault scored it's only podium that year (one of the few non-McLaren/Ferrari lockouts of the season) in a soaking wet race, where traction-control isn't much use anyway. Perhaps you also forgot that with suspension sorted out, the late-2008 Renault was one of the most settled cars out of a corner.
The real issue was the move from Michelins to Bridgestones. Renault invested very, very heavily in the Michelins, and extracted grip out of them like no other team - but they were fundamentally different from the Bridgestones, and unlike McLaren, were caught out in 2007. The Michelins worked optimally with a rear-based bias and certain suspensions, while the Bridgestones needed a more forward bias in order to extract the maximum. On top of that, the aerodynamics of a car depend heavily on the tyres: Moving at 300km/h, the upper surface moves at 600km/h compared to the air - so four times the aerodynamic forces exerted on the rest of the body. The way they move under loads also changes the airflow from the front wing and the rest of the car. The 2007 aerodynamics weren't made for the Bridgestones - and add that to the windtunnel calibration issues cause by this, it's hardly a surprise.
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