I’m not trying to argue that area scoring should not use superko, or that territory scoring should use it. It is just a side point that one is not necessarily beholden to tradition or consistency with historical rulings. However, I understand that one could have subjective preferences on such issues.
My ultimate contentions are that territory rules are woefully complex compared to area scoring rules, and that there are no simplified principles that these complexities could be reduced to.
For example, consider how a simple ko rule would handle the double ko seki. With passes to lifts ko bans, should a player in a losing position be able to exploit a double ko seki with endless cycling to force a no result instead? Of course, this is a rhetorical remark, as I believe the Japanese rules handle this by essentially making a special ruling for this case, by specifically explaining in the commentary of the 1989 rules.
Another example to consider is the complexities around life and death determination (under Japanese rules) as arise from the ambiguity of the enablement clause. We touched upon these across several posts in another thread (see Odd Cases 🤔 in the Japanese Rules - #63 by elsantodel90)
My point with these examples are just to contend that the Japanese rules are not at all conceptually simple nor textually concise. I would say that area scoring rules, particularly NZ or AGA rules or the simplified Chinese rules (as implemented by OGS where positional superko is always applied), are both conceptually simpler and more concise.
From what I understand, even the two main territory scoring rule sets, Japanese and Korean, are not completely consistent with each other in all situations. I believe that this is seen in some particular forms of moonshine life, which I think you even posted about previously in this forum. Does this mean that either (or both) of these are flawed? Is one approach better and why?