WordPress Plugin Repository Inaccessible to WP Engine Hosted Sites

This is a security issue now! It's not clear why Mullenweb has gone off the deep end. But if we can't get updates, he's putting sites at risk. And I use "he" because it looks like there's something personal about the kind and method of the complaints. From here, it also looks like WordPress.com is practicing restraint of trade, violating the spirit if not the letter of open source, and is being arbitrary and capricious in choosing to target WP Engine with its strange laundry list of complaints when there are so many other companies with "WP" in their names or which set installation standards for plugins and themes to their hosting clients.

As I wrote elsewhere on HN, my web-focused company uses WP Engine and I administrate it and let me tell you, it's WordPress. Completely WordPress. So some defaults are changed? Every other provider I've used does something similar. Matt hasn't mentioned the other excellent default WP Engine choices, if he wants more to complain about. Random PHP calls disabled by default. Must-use security drop-in plug-ins. High-risk and processor-intensive plug-ins disallowed. Regular plug-in vulnerability reports. It's an administrative layer of choices I appreciate as a web admin because I am just one guy.