I think it's a fair summary of what I understand your overall position to be. Specifically:
> This incorrectly assumes that an argument was being made. I already said: "I think you misunderstood the purpose of the post, which was simply to highlight the latest abomination, not to make a larger argument."
This is just "I'm not making an argument that they're merging, I'm stating it as an underlying assumption" which, again, distinction-without-a-difference.
It seems reasonable to, in this comment section over here, talk about the broader point of your opening assumption in the post. I don't have to accept your priors to talk about it, particularly not when the audience I was talking to was "readers of Hacker News, who may not have even considered this are-the-OSes-merging question before".
I don't think me disagreeing with you about the validity of your arguments violates any HN guidelines, though dang is certainly free to correct me.
Plus, even if I were to grant said underlying assumption as an inviolable topic that cannot be breached in discussion of this specific post, I'd then disagree that this is an example of it.
> Well, I didn't submit my post to HN. I'm not sure I wanted it to be on the front page.
I don't think I've ever seen you in HN comments for one of your posts not being somewhat-upset about people's responses to them. It's not the worst policy to avoid reading social media discussion about your posts, if it's making you unhappy.
> You don't have to darken the video in order to achieve brighter controls.
Sorry, I was apparently unclear about what my issue with Sequoia was, so let me rephrase. It's not the brightness, it's the outline. When I look at the Sequoia screenshot, I find my visual processing goes through two steps -- first I notice the overall button shapes, and second I identify their contents. Brightening the icons in Tahoe probably does help, but it's the reduction of the visual impact of the button-borders that really speeds my comprehension up.
> The other issue, I would say the main issue, is that the controls remain on top of the video for several seconds after you're done manipulating them.
They vanish instantly when you move the cursor off the video, which I reflexively do anyway because I don't want my cursor covering something I'm watching. (And in full-screen, the only time you couldn't do this, the background-darkening doesn't happen.)