I think you misread the point of my absurd example.
When folks say “colour management” and wave their hands around, it’s not useful. What is colour management? Is making a picture “colour management”, or is it a separate process? These are the sorts of questions that lead to what a good number of folks are using every day in Blender. It might seem like philosophy, but without addressing these ideas at the granular level, there’s no Filmic or any of the other nonsense.
When someone says that XXX does something that it in no uncertain terms does not, that seems like a problem.
I am 100% on the side of kludging. That is the craftsperson part of this that currently is trapped in between some often unfortunate conditions. That sucks. Most folks know I am always trying to fight for the craftsperson. Always.
If, however, we want to overcome this kludging, it’s likely going to start with trying to wrap our collective minds around abandoning the conceptual frameworks that are in no uncertain terms, completely not “working”. It is going to be challenging if folks insist on some mythical protocol that doesn’t work. That’s all.
Can an author overcome a crappy protocol and a crappy conceptual framework? Of course. Humans are pretty damn amazing. But let’s put the credit back in the people wrestling some of this garbage to the ground, and not in the mysticism of some protocol or standard or framework that did not reduce their labour or craft.