Yeah, this is long past the original thread. My understanding of this semantically meaningless expression ("based out of") is as an attempt at "operating out of", derived from "based in", originated and perpetuated by people with limited cognitive or expressive power.
(I found this forum by Googling "based out of". Incidentally, I'm a scientific editor, mostly for non-native English speakers, to none of whom it would ever occur to use this repellent expression).
Will its continued appearance debase the language? I trust only locally, and that we can keep it, like many other expressions, out of common usage by continuing to edit it out, we valiant proofreaders and editors.