Rose did become all about himself later, I agree and we agree that the betting, even if he bet on his own team, was worse than any steroids.
If we could identify a point (probably with educated guessing looking at the start of anomalous stats) where HOF candidates started doping and then find that they did have HOF numbers even excluding or extrapolating their numbers for the steroid years, then maybe. Bonds would certainly make it then, Clemens likely, McGwire and Sosa likely not.
But while I understand the scientific argument that steroids only help heal, they also prevent tiring, so someone can keep lifting weights beyond the usual capacity. The actual strength is not enhanced, but since the arms don't strain with the greater weight, they have the same effect.
No way you go from 40 HRs to 73 overnight, and gain hat sizes (!) by merely healing from injuries faster. On top of which, this approach puts the BLAME for every pennant not won, every great season not had on every player that did not take steroids during that period, preventing themselves and their teams from competing effectively. Chumps.
Not a good message to send for the future. I can tell you, living in a country where this is EXACTLY the mentality of the average citizen, how utterly corrosive it is to the social fabric: no one here pays taxes because everyone else avoids them. No one is going to be a chump. At times you can't walk on the sidewalk for all the cars parked there illegally, since everyone parks illegally (and the authorities never tow or give out tickets), so everyone parks there to not be the one at a disadvantage.
Everyone gets a job through personal contacts with their relatives and every relative with any contact at all favors relatives because this is how everyone else does it, so anyone competing on the basis of merit is a loser. Everyone joins some political party, hoping that this is the one with the right connections with bosses at their workplace, or the agency they need something from etc. so the parties are just exchanges for personal favors. Throw in the mafia in the mix and you have a society that does not go forward at all.
I have told people here that in the United States they put you in jail for avoiding taxes and since Italians think that the US is the libertarian capital of the world, their dream of a state-free society, they are shocked by what seems like totalitarian repression to them. No one goes to jail for not paying taxes in Italy. Or for corruption in politics, and so nothing gets built, planned, done, without bribes being paid.
This is why the rest of the world does not understand why the US government was upset that the heads of FIFA took bribes in the tens of millions of dollars from poor countries like South Africa to put the World Cup there. Lack of character is normal in the global economy.
So at the risk of being harsh and keeping a few millionaires out of the Hall of Fame, I would say let's err on the side of character.