That's correct. In fact, if everything were AC coupled (signals and power) it would be easy to reverse 180 degrees. The original USB was to replace kbd/mouse

That's correct. In fact, if everything were AC coupled (signals and power) it would be easy to reverse 180 degrees. The original USB was to replace kbd/mouse 'PS2' connectors, and some audio devices - the original maxed out at 12 Mb/s raw. Given the mishmash of connectors at the time, USB even with 50% insertion rate success was pretty darn good. It seems much less good in hindsight. One does have to wonder why they didn't try to fix this when they went USB-C -- they did only half the job.