Will google tell you: "Yes, you're penalized"?

received one of those cookie cutter emails...two days later

[walkman]

one of my sites has been hit hard, really hard so I send an email asking if I'm penalized. I know I'm not banned because I'm still indexed (most supplemental though) and the bot stops daily.
Two days later I get a:

"dear my name,
Thank you for your note. As you may know, our search results change regularly as we update our index. Normal changes you observe may include, but are not limited to..........blah blah"

eseentially they said that it's all automated, things change and that doesn't mean you're penalized. My question is, does Google use this not to tell that you're penalized or they just had too many emails that day and used this? The fact that it was sent two days later is confusing. Has anyone ever gotten an email saying that they have a penalty? I know people have gotten "You site is not banned or penalized" email...