Whether or not the inquiry is on your report, they can still see the accounts you have currently, their credit limits, and the date each account was created. I don't see why the "hard pulls" are so important.

I'm a programmer, so it just makes sense to me that they'd be able to chomp on that data and figure it out for themselves.

I wonder if some credit algorithms are already advanced enough to ignore the inquiries physically listed on the report and instead infer the actual number of inquiries based on your accounts and account age.