Thanks for the detailed analysis of the different systems. I think that the way you are viewing things differently to me is that you are considering the ballots as abstract entities in a data structure. For example you say "Anyone with an excel spreadsheet can do this", but my point is that people don't cast their votes in Excel, they cast them either on opaque voting machines (which you have to trust is running the firmware that your auditors approved), or ideally they are casting them on paper.
To give an example of an easy paper-based algorithm, for FPTP you can group each ballot based on the candidate marked and store those as separate piles, and then whichever candidate has the biggest pile wins. Alternatively the piles can be weighed (using a non-electronic set of balance scales if necessary). Also note that the ballot counters only need to decide on the presence/absence/location of a single mark on each ballot, and not decide, for example, whether two marks are "approvals" of two different candidates, or an approval and a crossing out of an approval. These are the sorts of factors which your Excel spreadsheet model overlooks.
I do completely agree with you, though, that IRV/STV in practice tends to be slower than both FPTP and ordinal systems, and its counting process can't be run in parallel, so I would only support it in the circumstance where it was the only reform being offered, and where I was confident that its failure modes wouldn't cause it to be quickly abandoned and used as an excuse to stick with FPTP over better alternatives. Where there is a choice of reform, I support Asset Voting because it retains all the simplicity benefits of FPTP while being resistant to the spoiler effect.
To give an example of an easy paper-based algorithm, for FPTP you can group each ballot based on the candidate marked and store those as separate piles, and then whichever candidate has the biggest pile wins. Alternatively the piles can be weighed (using a non-electronic set of balance scales if necessary). Also note that the ballot counters only need to decide on the presence/absence/location of a single mark on each ballot, and not decide, for example, whether two marks are "approvals" of two different candidates, or an approval and a crossing out of an approval. These are the sorts of factors which your Excel spreadsheet model overlooks.
I do completely agree with you, though, that IRV/STV in practice tends to be slower than both FPTP and ordinal systems, and its counting process can't be run in parallel, so I would only support it in the circumstance where it was the only reform being offered, and where I was confident that its failure modes wouldn't cause it to be quickly abandoned and used as an excuse to stick with FPTP over better alternatives. Where there is a choice of reform, I support Asset Voting because it retains all the simplicity benefits of FPTP while being resistant to the spoiler effect.