isn't the blanking circuit supposed to prevent this type behavior?

This type of board abuse makes me sad

This is where eyelets come into play, I actually never use the stitch method and always eyelet the board since they will outlast the board if installed properly. This is a picture of a board I repaired after someone pulled burned resistors with a soldering gun.
eyelet_repair_(resized).jpg

They are expensive; I happened to come across a manufacturer sample kit that contained 10's of thousands of copper board repair eyelets, and since I have all the ball mills, there really is no reason for me to stitch anything.

I forgot to mention the eyelet insertion equipment

That is kind of an important detail.

Very nice job on the desoldering, I would have never even attempted that without a desoldering station, it's just to big a risk ... especially if its someone else's board