Hello,
Just a quick question:
What would it take to have the issue escalated to 2nd/3rd level support within Microsoft? Was an attempt to reproduce the issue within Microsoft infrastructure made?
The thread clearly proves that this seems to be a wide-spread issue (it's just that most users probably do not check the Event Logs so their reports do not flood the forum). The thread also proves that Windows 8.1 install refresh does not help and that the problem had started after Windows 8.1 Update.
The thread had basically exhausted all the investigation that could be done by the end user. I believe all that remains is to attach a debugger to the process and/or decrypt SSL traffic from the server the WSRefreshBannedAppsList connects to (something end user should never have to do).