Thanks for the feedback. As you can see, the question is rhetorical. With good intention-- to 1) keep the topic current and 2) to encourage others to check lists/share similar instances.
I wouldn't expect an Apple SE to key in on this forum, but since Apple SEs monitor discussions, I see it as a no-harm, no-foul scenario. I just googled the issue to check--about 15 of the top 20 hits are relevant. A few are Apple Discussions. Many are non-apple discussions asking why Apple hasn't really acknowledged the issue.
There is little one might do to troubleshoot other than following typical personal data security protocols such as password updates, logging out of all devices, etc. Again, it seems completely random, has continued throughout the years, over over various devices.
I'll add that it has happened to me, personally, across two icloud accounts--one of which has never had an iphone/ipad device connection which might have been shared with another icloud account. While I don't doubt my ability to do anything inadvertently, I really don't think that was the issue, at least in many of my cases. We're talking as many as 25 or 30 numbers.
Good to know about the health/safety perspective. This actually poses a concern--for instance, one person's post was trying to understand why family/emergency contacts were being blocked on a sick grandparent's phone. I was shocked to see a former boss's number on my list. Not a safety concern, but definitely a personal wellness concern.
I guess what I'm really wondering is how the workflow is as bad as it is--regardless of user error or causation. Once a number is blocked, there is really no way to conveniently unblock a contact, and virtually no way to audit the list. One must reverse search the numbers to see that "555-555-5555" is actually a very important contact.
For example, 95% of blocked numbers do not show any indentifiable information such as name or email. The exception *appears to be only those contacts with active imessage threads (another reason to doubt blocking via messages delete/swipe). Also, contact cards remain for some of the blocked numbers and show numbers/emails which were not added to the blocked contact list (useful if you want to block stalker calls and robo-calls, but keep their emails *just in case??).
Thanks for the response and hearing me out. I'll just think of this as a wish in a well type scenario.
