> Trying to tamp out these ambiguities adds an unbounded number of data model epicycles that add a lot of complexity and performance loss

If you can talk about a business rule, you have a predicate. If you have a predicate, you can make it 5 or 6 normal form, since all that means is that your relation expresses only and completely the predicate.

It seems that your definition of normalization is not the one that I am using above. What is it?