Anyone who's ignore list is longer than a few posters is literally a child. The only excuse is if you're some 20-year Atlas veteran who still has trolls from the 2004 election on ignore.
Blocking/ignoring people is a power fantasy for people who want the serotonin rush that comes with enacting petty vengeance upon someone they dislike. Having people on ignore makes your user experience extremely irritating, and you'll always be paranoid that people are talking about you if you can't read their posts. It ultimately just ends up creating more work for the person with a long ignore list, because they'll be constantly clicking "show post."
That's why you eliminate the temptation by removing the feature. It's a beautiful and successful feature now. I constantly see people complaining about Sir Woodbury and Landslide Lyndon (even pre-election), and I haven't seen a post from them in years, truly improving my quality of life by magnitudes. Just looking at my list, I found three other active posters that I totally forgot exist.
There is no avoiding rampant thread starters like Runeghost and GWBFan but missing 90 percent of their posts sure improves the usability.