As I read the report I can relate to the feeling of fixing a problem like this. As a Sys Admin in my day job I often find and fix problems similar to how you have described.
This makes me want to relate the fix to someone else and share the joy, it’s usually a loved one that listens but has no idea what I am talking about.
So rest assured that I fully understand what you are describing and I get that finding the fix is better than the fix (all avatar requests coming from cloudflare) I also appreciate the fix. Keep up the good work.
Yes, this task turned out to be more of a devops issue than a programming one. I think many people don't appreciate how challenging such problems can be. The job title "system administrator" doesn't really do it justice when you need to debug hard problems.