Agreed. Most patents include a sequence of progressively narrower claims building on one another, including permutations of subsets of the new mechanisms claime

Agreed. Most patents include a sequence of progressively narrower claims building on one another, including permutations of subsets of the new mechanisms claimed, with the expectation that the broadest is likely invalid, the narrowest is definitely novel, and the courts can determine where the boundary falls between the others. That this patent does none of this I agree suggests a lawyer did not get paid enough, or the patent was intended to publish the ideas (i.e. stop the "big players" from copying an idea and patenting it). As-is, depending on how you squint and read it, the single claim either is too specific for anything but a clone of the product it's describing to infringe, or so generic it's just describing prior art.