On the flip side, the lawyers that represented the big tech firms at the time were some of the most impressive people I've ever met.

You could speak to them as a peer when it came to technical issues or system architecture AND they were experts in technology law. Especially impressive given that anti-spam was still in it's infancy and rapidly evolving.

On par, a large part of that professional cohort has its entire career made by abusing rules intended to prevent abuse of rules.

It's a self-perpetuating monster that breeds attitudes and behaviours that maximise antisocial and exploitative behaviour by the system's design.

just look at what was done to copywrite, designed to protect inventors from cororates and related abuse, now unweildly for individuals and largly serves corporate interest more than the individuals it was supposed to protect. Same with patent system.