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100% this is fun! I would argue that a large part of the definition of what Bitcoin IS directly flows from what it allows and what it rejects regarding transaction construction. Transactions must be denominated in Bitcoin's base monetary units, not in USD, or ETH, or anything else. Yes, that is definitional of what Bitcoin is and is not, but it is also regulatory of what Bitcoin allows to be stored in a block. Likewise, the block-size limit is a regulation on what Bitcoin allows, but one that serves to protect what Bitcoin is: a decentralized, sound, digital money. Even the early datacarrier limits that have been adjusted over time were regulatory in order to preserve Bitcoin's purpose of being money, rather than a decentralized file-storage database. And to be clear, we are not talking about filtering transactions by what sorts of things you are spending your money on. A payment to a hooker and a payment to a church are indistinguishable, so it isn't possible to filter one or the other out on the basis of moral qualms about prostitution or supporting a particular church. Nor should it be, since money should be fungible in order to function properly as money. But I think we should be able to acknowledge there is a massive difference between using Bitcoin for its intended purpose as money to BUY an NFT, even if you or I think NFTs are stupid, vs using Bitcoin for an unintended purpose to STORE an NFT.

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You’re right that the line between what Bitcoin is and what it allows isn’t as clean as I made it sound. Block size limits and early datacarrier limits do regulate to preserve monetary purpose. But here’s my counter. Taproot and SegWit fundamentally changed what Bitcoin allows. Whether intended or not, the community achieved consensus on upgrades that enabled this. That makes inscription capability part of what Bitcoin is now, post-2021. Retroactively restricting it isn’t preserving Bitcoin’s original nature - it’s unwinding a consensus change that already happened. The time to prevent this was before Taproot activation, not after. And on the interpretation question: who decides when metadata becomes storage? When a payment becomes a file? Block size is objective. ‘This data is monetary, that isn’t’ requires human judgment on every edge case. That’s the regulatory layer I’m uncomfortable with. You’ve made a strong case. But I think the consensus ship already sailed, and trying to filter it now is changing Bitcoin, not preserving it.