> A lot of these bots consume a shit load of resources specifically because they don't handle cookies, which causes some software (in my experience, notably phpBB) to consume a lot of resources. (Why phpBB here? Because it always creates a new session when you visit with no cookies. And sessions have to be stored in the database. Surprise!) Forcing the bots to store cookies to be able to reasonably access a service actually fixes this problem altogether.
... has phpbb not heard of the old "only create the session on the second visit, if the cookie was successfully created" trick?