Out of curiousity, has there been any confirmation of negative effects after one of the recent patches on servers? It really does seem as if there was some immediate changes after the patch a few weeks ago, and it almost certainly seems tied to the time of the patch.
Absolutely this. I don't know what patch you think it might have been, but for me it was very clearly right when Season 6 hit; it was like flipping a switch. I was there playing right before and right after. Suddenly server lag (whole lobby with red pings and players obviously disrupted) every few games, which is vastly more frequent than before, and it has been that way ever since. I have not noticed any changes for better or worse associated with any subsequent patches.
It makes me think about how server reports are handled, specifically how the "noise" of accidental reports is filtered out to avoid an overwhelming amount of reports (they'll end up being ignored one...