I agree that codes are stupid, but you're talking about an active game in the recruitment thread, I don't think you should be making comments like the bolded.
It applies to almost every game of Mafia we've had on GAF, and it's not necessarily characteristic of any alignment.
The general problem I see is that there are players who seem wired to look for ways to 'break' the rules, find loopholes, be sneaky, etc. As a game runner, I'm wary of people who break the game, or play it in a way that is against what I think the spirit of the game is. Not that I'm trying to condemn or shame anyone - I believe there might be a natural difference between people who see rules as "these are the only things you are allowed to do" VS those who see rules as "you can do anything except for these things". The latter is probably going to try to get away with a lot of things that the gamerunners perhaps didn't think of covering the bases for.
I do believe that it's important to let players be creative in how they problem-solve, and make the rules flexible enough to support that. I
think every game runner has given that opportunity, but maybe in varying amounts. However, I think stuff like breadcrumbing and encrypted messages is against the basic tenet of Mafia/Werewolf - all the daytime, "Main Thread" talk should be public and able to be weighed. Encoding messages is a deliberate attempt to subvert that.