Ok, this seems to be a by-design behavior and a perfect example of a vexing exception. This can be solved with this:
public static HttpWebResponse GetHttpResponse(this HttpWebRequest request)
{
try
{
return (HttpWebResponse) request.GetResponse();
}
catch (WebException ex)
{
if(ex.Response == null || ex.Status != WebExceptionStatus.ProtocolError)
throw;
return (HttpWebResponse)ex.Response;
}
}