While we're here, (and if anyone could chime in and refine or otherwise pick apart my analogy), it's impractical in the sense that it still requires us to take

While we're here, (and if anyone could chime in and refine or otherwise pick apart my analogy), it's impractical in the sense that it still requires us to take care of all the key and session management business in the real world, which is why AEAD systems and the like are necessary (in order to reliably and safely construct "one-time pads" under the hood). I've always considered the OTP to be (not in some strict, rigorously correct sense) more like an ideal, theoretical/abstract cipher, much like how a Turing machine, generally unconcerned with a practical limit in tape size, is a sort of idealized, abstract computer. "It is the Turing machine of encryption schemes"?