Part of the problem here is that a knife may be used as a food utensil or a
weapon. Safe handling, however, is always required, and should be
documented.
I would add two other comments. I tried to locate the RFC for HTTP/0.9,
but the best I could find was a reference to a CERN ftp site for the
protocol. In any case, by the time HTTP got to the IETF it was deployed
over a vast number of end stations, and comparisons to it are probably not
apt.
Finally, rechartering is precisely what you ought to have done, and should
do, IMHO.