Hi. Regarding the vehicle discussion - I think we must also use common sense (but not compromise, using “common sense” as an excuse to go shortcuts). Speaking for myself, I always climb my mountains for activation - and before participating SOTA as hiking since being 12 years old, I wouldn’t have come to an idea to drive up any hill.
However… SOTA participation gave me an opportunity to get to some great places, to which I would give normally less priority in my planning, and probably simply I wouldn’t go there. I also noticed that some of the popular hills simply have parking lots nearby their AZ’s, while leaving the car in unattended places somewhere below would be a risk. I believe the creators of the rules are trying to avoid killing the spirit of hiking/effort, getting in touch with the nature, trying to avoid “activation racing”, etc. So, each case perhaps would need to be decided separately …by the activator. Following the rules, but moral part of it is always to the activator.
There is another thing often discussed within SOTA-SP community - summits on the border, where one summit is counted in both countries’ associations. To activate “both”? Or activate one? The rules don’t forbid it, but some activators say - “I activate one summit, why should I score twice?”, some say “I activate both, this becomes attractive to chasers as well”. Honestly, I haven’t determined yet what is better - sometimes I activated both summits, sometimes just one.
That is my perception - and it is every activator’s internal code to apply whenever the rules don’t say something literally. Everyone here knows for yourself, whether you come together with the spirit or not, the rest is just semantics and drilling the rules, but when things become too complicated, it is better to step back and see the whole picture - what it is all about. Then no doubts what to do. No need to ask anyone else’s justification. That is my so-far life experience, not only in SOTA… 