You could say my question was half-academic.  I read your closing message and thought “this feature request has been closed because of the version, not really rejected”, so I asked about reopening.  On a second level, it appears from your detailed message (thanks for writing it) that the situation is still unclear, so I do think that a review of docs and tests is needed, and maybe an API cleanup.  I’m assigning this to myself as an opportunity to learn the insides of cmd in some months.