I also connect a lot through an EC2 machine that I use as a proxy. I do this because I do not live in the U.S. and many websites require U.S.-based IPs.

It's a pity that StackOverflow doesn't allow me to do this (so I end up turning the proxy on and off and back on again). It's not like you couldn't rent a cheap Linode instance (or from another provider, take your pick) and do whatever you want with SO, if you really wanted to.

SO needs more sophisticated tools to block the access for bots/crawlers. IP blocking just doesn't cut it and tends to discriminate against legitimate users with special needs.

"It's a pity that StackOverflow doesn't allow me to do this (so I end up turning the proxy on and off and back on again)."

FoxyProxy (and probably other extensions) make site-specific proxy settings feasible.