> How can I make a simple edit to /etc/hosts? Who knows?

In case somebody else needs to do this, you actually can:

https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/network/customize-hosts-fil...

But as you said, you are "not supposed to". I'd say that if you need to do that, most of the time there's an underlaying issue that needs to be fixed instead and consider editing the hosts file a workaround.