(...) That's why I've downloaded 801,550 images from imgur, which were embedded on the forum. Downloading took 3 days using 4 different servers, and another 3 days to process the data. (...)
I expect a lot of people to not fully realize how valuable what you've done is; nice work!
Having a copy of these images safely tucked away means that the Imgur issue can be worked on without rushing things.
I hope theymos settles on an approach that involves URL substitutions being made by the image proxy, because that would fix things forum-wide without anyone having to do anything.