Well, after calling Cox and getting a total nerd for a representative who ran various ping attempts on POL (getting slow but reasonable results) I finally managed to log back in the game with no problems.
I hope this clears up for everyone else but I'm finally able to log in without POL-0011 ^^
Edit: I spoke far too soon. Not even 5 minutes of being able to log on I get the boots and get POL-0011 again. *stabs ISP*