"An alternative to removing the line is adding a character to the code so it's treated as a comment and isn't executed." What is this wizardry?

With every employer/employee contract I've worked under, code created belongs to whoever is paying me. If you're carrying code with you that belongs to someone else under contract, you could get yourself into a good bit of trouble, worse if you're open sourcing it.

They already do this, but you STILL have to walk back and put the ticket in your window for some unknown reason. I usually end up walking to the meter without remembering to look at the number, walk back to the parking spot, get the number, walk back to meter, realize I don't have my wallet, walk back... etc.

That's because in most companies (and software projects in general), there are programmers who act like children (usually due to over sized egos). Most programmers aren't like this, but those who are tend to be the most visible.

From my experience, this is common. Even worse than it being down is when it starts returning malformed headers, etc. It's really not fun. FedEx and UPS are no better, particularly with their development servers. It's YOUR time and labor, so they really don't care.