well, at a guess... scripting issues
unless you mean the nice ping\version\time inbuilt ones
in that case i would have to guess its one of khaled nifty little things called flood protection
back when he didnt do it, 5 people could version someone 4 times each and make them flood with replies and no about of scripting could stop it. then he made it only do it once per nick in x seconds. (also that could be it)
i think khaled should bring that back.
oh yeah, PS. supply more secific details when posting bugs, eg type of ctcp's, have you any scripted anything, if your friends were trying to flood you