Sunrise today in Knoxville TN was at 6:53. 180 miles to the west, in Nashville, TN it was at 6:03.
We can make time whatever we want it to be, let's make it where it has the most benefit to the population, and the research has shown that is daylight savings time.
Precisely that. If we want to re-define things to make the most of the daylight, when why don't we just start everything one hour earlier? It would achieve exactly the same outcome, and twelve noon would line up with solar noon (give or take, but you can't have everything).
Because that is an impossible coordination problem, while moving to permanent DST could be done easily.
I don’t see why being close to solar time matters, when it is such a moving target. Time systems are tools. They aren’t propositions about the natural world. It is only important for them to be accurate representations of some underlying natural phenomena when that makes them more useful as tools. I don’t see how nearness to Solar time does that on the scale we are talking about.
I'd think any technical systems also work pretty arbitrarily between the two.