Your Aside #1 reminded me of our "conceptual clash" with Cliff Stamp half a year ago.
I interpret our experimental data through all the knowledge amassed to date, and the latter is not obvious in the study script, and can not be made obvious, unless I write a 1000-page explanation to each study which no one would read.
We do not do studies for the sake of science, but to fill this or that gap in the sharpening practices, and every our finding is confirmed in real-life cutting settings.
We see in our experiments that the flat ground edge shall not go below 15 degrees per side in traditional (ingot) tool steels, and
below 10 dps in the powder metallurgy "supersteels" and quality higher-end carbon knives, because the apex will not cut without folding.
We had a clash with Cliff Stamp on that, as this contradicts his 5-8 dps best cutting geometry statement.
Cliff faulted our study methods vigorously.