I believe the spec is saying that if you are a proxy, and you have a cached value for X, then you see a delete for X, you are allowed to immediately expire your entry for X. In other words, the proxy is permitted to assume that a delete request is so likely to result in a change on that resource that it may simply assume the cache is bad. It isn't required to, though.
It does not mean that if you receive a DELETE request you can just substitute the value of what is a completely different request (the GET request). I believe eloisius is not correct about the spec banning this behavior with that line. It's "banned" because it's just broken, nonsensical. It's not the same request in the first place, any more than you can just substitute POST results for GET.
It does not mean that if you receive a DELETE request you can just substitute the value of what is a completely different request (the GET request). I believe eloisius is not correct about the spec banning this behavior with that line. It's "banned" because it's just broken, nonsensical. It's not the same request in the first place, any more than you can just substitute POST results for GET.