As a note, although simplified merges far more characters than traditional, it also splits some characters that are merged in traditional. For example, 乾 in tra

As a note, although simplified merges far more characters than traditional, it also splits some characters that are merged in traditional. For example, 乾 in traditional is split into either 乾 (qian2 one of the hexagrams) or 干 (gan1 dry) in simplified. Regardless, the number of simplified characters for which the merger of traditional characters happens is small, even more so compared to the number of Chinese characters you see on a day-to-day basis. On top of that, the vast majority of these mergers involve one character that in traditional Chinese is archaic and very rarely seen or are considered obscure variant characters of the same word in traditional Chinese. I can only think of maybe a dozen or so examples that show up in Chinese you're likely to read on a day-to-day basis. Even fewer if what you're reading doesn't have a lot to do with ancient China. That's why I say it's essentially a one-to-one correspondence. I do hear your argument often from other Chinese speakers to support why reading traditional characters if you only know simplified characters is easier than reading simplified characters if you only know traditional characters so maybe there's something to it.