Typical SEO victim mentality. The removal of duplicate content from the SERPs is not a penalty. The purpose of removing duplicate content from the SERPs is to avoid giving the searcher multiple copies of the same material, not to penalise a website. It is about improving the searcher's experience, not worsening the webmaster's.
i think u got it wrong. i'm not talking about removing duplicate content pages. i'm talking about removing the home page of the site itself for its actual keywords. this has nothing to do with searching for the pages holding duplicated content.
I want to hear more from the guys from Manchester . Let's see some hard evidence to support your divergent theories.