I also agree with posters claiming that the camera is not the issue rather the badly trained & poorly buoyant diver.
I went to Sipadan on 5 occasions from early 2004 to end 2010, last time I dived Sipadan my feeling was that :
1- Photo opportunities on Sipadan where mostly off and away from the wall with the barracudas, the jackfish, turtles, sharks swimming in free water. I don't see how a photographer could hurt any coral, except at the bottom, 600m depth, but then his housing would be leaking.
2- Most of the coral touching/breaking divers looked like parts of either asian or russian groups left on their own, no DM around. Their poor aquacity seemed they had not dived recently or before the end of the last century. I even had to help a russian diver latching back his tank that was floating away, while his wife was snapping some coral bits from the wall. None of them had cameras.
3- Hard corals were in very good shape in the southern areas (South point), except for circular part or a 2-3m radius, where corals where completely blown away, some of them laying upside down. Would you blame that on photographers?
4- I found that there were fewer midsized fish than before. I remember 9 years ago jackfish schools the size of a cloud, darkening the surface while in 2010 they could easily fit in my dSLR frame. Maybe that's a coincidence but I also noticed fishing boats not further than a few hundred meters from Sipadan shores. None of the fishermen were carrying cameras.
5- I didn't spot any pygmy seahorse on my >80 dives in Sipadan so I couldn't tell whether Sipadan photogs would damage and touch the Muricella seafan or even the seahorses, whereas I found Mabul area was getting overcrowded with photographers and there were less and less critters, no more pygmy seahorse for instance

. (because the pygmies are on Mabul, not on Sipadan but hey, btw... the camera ban is only for Sipadan area right?)
Out of joke I would also agree if they just shut down Sipadan for one or 2 years, but I mean REALLY shut it down to anyone, fishermen included.
But I don't think the authorities will have the guts to do it, so they prefer to blame something else.