I would argue that using something like this would result in a less readable file overall. 85% of people editing SVGs by hand have 0 interest in modifying paths

I would argue that using something like this would result in a less readable file overall. 85% of people editing SVGs by hand have 0 interest in modifying paths by hand. They likely want to move elements around, change groups, etc. If the d-path was written less compactly, these path definitions, which, again most people don't even care about, would end up taking up the vast majority of the space in the file. It would be impossible to get an idea of the nesting, and super annoying to move things around since they would be huge. Also: Reminder SVGs goal is presentation, so paths even for a simple monochrome icon have _hundreds_ of control points. Something more intricate or a larger graphic? Thousands easily. All the examples here are toy examples, that don't scale to what SVG is actually used for.