The new relinking feature is designed to find the original files; it is not really intended to support a proxy workflow. That said, if the program cannot find the original files, it will look for others that match certain properties and ask if the ones you find are what you want to link to.
So for your workflow, try "hiding" the original clips from Premiere by either keeping them on an external drive that you turn off or by moving the folder. If you go the latter route, I believe you will get better results by moving the original folder up rather than down because the code is designed to drill down deeper from the last known location.