I hope you manage to recover your account, OP.
Just out of curiosity, is there any member in a similar situation who has ever managed to recover his account and get unbanned?
Yes, there is one, My Account - LogitechMouse has been hacked and locked.
Similar in nature, hacker didn't change the password, but instead posted some malicious links and someone caught it, reported his account and the recovery team was able to get it back for him.
Just scary though, I mean I thought that this hacking of accounts here has been reduced since the introduction of merits as it's useless to hack someone and used or sell it. But the criminals have evolved as well, not to change the password as not to aroused suspicions and instead try to PM or create a thread that has some malware on it.