I wouldn't consider that conclusion 'obvious', as it's not hard to get people together to block or report, or go off on some other witch hunt against someone for something totally unrelated to the game.
People are spiteful, petty, creatures. If my CMDR's name were the same as my forum name, I strongly suspect that my commander would be on an order of magnitude more block lists than he is now. As it is, I get plenty of attempts at vandalism of my non-monetized YouTube channel (the only other place I use the name Morbad) for things I say on this forum. Most recently some people downvote spammed a nearly three year old video of mine (one that had all of two dozen view, no less) and left some confused, but seemingly insulting comments...for what I said (or how I said it) about a video card in the off-topic subforum.
That said, s more straightforward report tool might be useful. So if someone is being actually disruptive in a way that violates the letter or spirit of the rules, they can be drawn to Frontier's attention (without having to fill out a form), as it's Frontier who should be meting out justice to players. Of course, frivolous use of such a function should also be prohibited.
I don't disagree with any of this, but I also do not see it as a justification of exclusionary tools in the Open mode we currently have.
I won't Block you ☠ Also, I would, if I were FDEV, put a Limit on the amount of time you can be within an ENG base zone without requesting and landing. Something like a 2 minute count-down inside a certain "zone", and if you don't either leave the "zone" or land, you get blasted. That would certainly discourage the sociopathic griefers from ramming people at these places, blocking pads or hanging outside waiting to blast people.