Rule #4. Source of Criteria

I've recently submitted a challenge cache, which required users to have finds on caches with a certain number of finds (in my case 10 caches with 10k or more finds). This is a script I wrote, presumably no similar challenges exist. My reviewer, after consulting with other reviewers said it was not publishable, because of "Rule #4. Source of Criteria", specifically, because it (apparently) violates "must come from information broadly available on Geocaching.com such as on the statistics page, cache placement dates, types, attributes, souvenirs, etc.". However, he politely told me to submit an appeal (which I've done).

The claim was that it violates this rule, because users would need to "browse" geocaches to find ones that had N number of finds, because there's no way to filter the map by number of finds (but..... any reasonable person would just be smart and use project-gc's statistics :)). However, there are so many challenges out there that use similarly unfilterable information.... for example, negative attributes aren't filterable on geocaching.com. There are numerous challenges that require finds at certain elevations, which isn't actually available on geocaching.com in any form, including on the cache page.

Has anybody else been rejected for this rule?
Does it seem like an overly broad interpretation?
Will I win my appeal?

...

Will geocaching ever implement negative attribute filtering? :)

Update: lost the appeal...