The wording is not hand-wavy. They said "not necessarily invalidated", which could mean that innocuous reason and nothing extra.

I really think it is. The primary function of these publications is to validate science. When we find invalid citations, it shows they're not doing their job. When they get called on that, they cite the volume of work their publication puts out and call out the only potential not-disqualifying outcome.

Seems like CYA, seems like hand wave. Seems like excuses.

Even if some of those innocuous mistakes happen, we'll all be better off if we accept people making those mistakes as acceptable casualties in an unforgiving campaign against academic fraudsters.

It's like arguing against strict liability for drunk driving because maybe somebody accidentally let their grape juice sit to long and they didn't know it was fermented... I can conceive of such a thing, but that doesn't mean we should go easy on drunk driving.