This won't help resolve the debate, but I believe the core of the problem is that the WotC designers did not set down hard and fast rules about the difference between Free Action, No Action and "not even a No Action", or else did not communicate them well. (Examples of "not even a No Action" are things like the Rageblood Vigor Barbarian's bonus Temporary Hit Points after knocking an opponent to 0 hit points).
The way I think of them is this:
Free Actions take a tiny amount of time (say, 1/4 second) or else they cause events around them to slow down for dramatic purposes (e.g., while you are shouting "Surrender!" to your foes, everyone else is distracted and holds their blows.)
No Actions take no time. None. Not even a thought is required. It's not an action so much as "the roll of the dice lied" (Elven Accuracy) or of the player telling the DM "No, THIS is what REALLY happened". [It is my belief that use of Action Points should be in this category, with the continued caveat of using them only on your own turn.]
Not even a No Action: just a consequence of the triggering event. No decisions involved by character or player.
Now, that's just my interpretation. But it's pretty clear that whatever scheme the designers came up with, it did not propagate through the product evenly.
Note: I saw the same thing in 3.x, where the designers quasi-randomly talked about extra-dimensional space, non-dimensional space, etc. without ever defining what they were, how they differed, and how they interacted. It's almost as if they treated all the different versions of "blah-dimensional space" as synonymous terms chosen for literary effect.
