That's correct; I think you could register on Taobao with a US (or other) phone number, but from what I remember it requires phone number, which I'm not willing to give (opposed to a one-time email address, for example). And they wouldn't ship outside China, probably, anyway. These proxies work very well. You can search in them as well, not sure though if they show all results.
So I guess you used Taobao website for purchasing with proxy before, and it's true that you can find anything there, but I found other good alternatives when I needed to buy something few years ago.
Topic of ordering stuff online is very important, and I think renting PO box or alternative delivery address is perfect solution for that, even better if you can use alternative name or alias (not possible in all countries).
It's scary how much data and personal information we leave online all the time, especially with anything related with bitcoin.
Yeah, I did order there once using Superbuy. The topic of anonymously receiving packages is definitely interesting. One more topic that would fit best into the recently suggested 'cybersecurity' or maybe better 'security & privacy' subforum. I doubt it will happen though since we should use Off-topic or another highly spammed board instead, probably.