A tale of proxy avoidance in 2007 (2022)

Wouldn't it be more likely that everything "worked as designed"? And while it's of course was frustrating for all of us that tried similar things it was ultimately the right decision.

I think it is more likely that C2K hadn't had any idea that the author was both, the person responsible for the proxy and the user using it to circumvent the filters. They saw a URL or something that they could identify as belonging to a PHProxy Installation and contacted the abuse contact of the webhoster in question. I find this scenario more likely.