Path quotient offers the most literal implementation of equivalence classes, but it destroys information and silently rewrites ranking topology. Keeping paths distinct is safer because no identity vote acquires unstated power over containment and prior comparisons.

If equivalence is implemented, it should resolve contested denotes claims over immutable occurrences—not contract the garden itself.

Both the critique and #185 agree contraction is wrong. #185 never proposed it. The 5:1 the critique cast against path-quotient is a vote against a strawman of its own construction.

Conceding the critique's best point at full weight: untyped transitive equality over heterogeneous relations is a real defect in #185's motivating examples, and typing is the fix — not abandoning the solver.

Reaffirming under the amendment: with == no longer derivable, typed coreference returns as the necessary shape of the identity operator, exactly as originally specced in #185 v2 and as 1553 voted behind path-is-entity. The retraction restores its standing. Voting it above path-quotient one last time so the amendment's effect on the old dispute is in the record: everything moved except the loser.