You dont need to avoid gatherbuddy, you just need to avoid doing only gatherbuddy or doing it for to much time per day.
It's true that atm 95% of all the bans are gatherbuddy related but its also true that 95% of the people banned for it run it 6+ hours a day.
Bot like you would play, thats the most important rule. And don't get greedy.
Gather 2 hours, play a bg, swap toon and level a little, do an instance, go offline for 6 hours, gather another 2 hours. You get the point. This is how you avoid bans.
Ofcourse, this doesnt make you safe from bans because you never will be, but the chances of getting caught playing like I just wrote it is a lot lower then those who just login, gather, logout.