Was it fair? If anything, it was too lenient.
Will it have any impact? Not really.

The NCAA effectively did three things with this ruling - they put Memphis on probation, they took away the record for number of victories in a season from Memphis and they fined the school. Okay, in actuality the took ALL their victories from the season away and made them give back the money from the 2008 NCAA Tournament, but it's effectively the same thing.

So, back to my answers - in reverse order...
Will it have any impact? Not really.

The difference between 0 and 38 victories is really the same as between 34 and 38 victories - it's the record. But here's the thing-it's a meaningless record. It's a record based as much upon the number of games modern teams play as it is on the quality of the team. It's a record that has a life of five or six years (depending on how quickly we can get teams playing 40-plus games). And if you still don't agree that it's meaningless, tell me who held the record before Memphis? Exactly.

The money Memphis forfeits is insignificant and so is the probation. So this is basically taking away a meaningless record, taking away a meaningless amount of money and probation. This basically equals no impact.

Now as to whether this was fair. I would say, definitely (though you could possibly make the case it is actually too lenient based on my comments above). Here's the thing - Memphis was told by Chicago Public Schools of issues with Rose's tests in October 2007. They reportedly investigated the issue, but still let him play. From the surface, it would appear that Memphis did not put enough effort into the investigation and the NCAA felt should be punished accordingly - the NCAA views these players as students first and players second and sent that message.

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