JW & Calhunter,
thank you for your replies. The type of spam this site receives is not necessarily from an individual,per se, but more probably the result of a web-bot keying in on particular terms & phrases. If so, a "permaban" will not provide a solution since, effectively, all that will block is a proxy.
Unfortunately, I don't have a solution but I have seen this on other forums.
Now, more importantly-the "Time-Outs" & hang-ups as referenced by MuleyHunter: often it renders the site inaccessible, at the very least frustrating.
So, what's the situation there? It wasn't always the case.