The card was legal as a four-of all the way up to April of 1995, when Standard was first invented
Unlike a face-down creature that was cast using a disguise or morph ability, a cloaked creature may still be turned face up after it loses its abilities if it's a creature card
Things like this will ultimately become collectible/desirable on their own, as people collect the history of grading
I can see this being a nice bit of politicking in spirits, and you wont hate it in your opening hand
One could argue that they finalized the designs with Greenbacks and then did a test run of no number blue backs to see how they turned out/would be received
Stranglehold says that your opponents cant search libraries and if an opponent would begin an extra turn, that player skips that turn instead. The art appropriately shows Karlach grappling some goblins, a good parallel for how this card shuts down opponents options