In reply to Simon Lee:
In reply to Simon Lee:
Simon, I'm a yank and what the E grade system seeks to do is not that particularly hard to understand. I rather like the idea of a system that combines danger and difficulty. Since I don't buy the distinction you make between danger and difficulty as things that are subjective and objective respectively, it seems perfectly possible and appropriate to me for us climbers to make a special kind of statement (as in, "That's E7") about the combined mental/physical challenge a given rock climb presents.
Mind you, I've never applied the E system, but prior to your article, I wasn't particularly confused over the issue. In fact, Occam's razor might very well be applied to your rather unwieldy essay (as it well may my own).
That said, it's pretty apparent some folks are having a some trouble with the E system (it's very interesting that this trouble is at the top-end, though). You're obviously having lots of trouble with it. It should be said that others are not and are using it just fine it would seem.
Your desire to trim the complexity and subjectivity of the E system, to replace it with a system that is, in a sense, without style and therefore somehow objective just won't work. Replacing it with a 'grade as-if-on toprope' (TR is its own style, no?) or something of the like will not ultimately relieve your agitation.
Why? Well because Adam L. is right. There is not an 'objective' grade and there never will be. Grades, unfortunately for you at the moment anyway, are what we climbers say they are.
All I mean to say is that grades are consensus-based. You agree I think. Whether by an informal or formal process, grades are the result of us climbers getting together in whatever fashion and talking about climbs, comparing the in terms of what we each (subjectively) thought about their difficulty, and coming to an agreement over a grade. As this very UKC forum suggests, these "agreements" are not set in stone as you suggest (pun intended), but are subject to discussion, re-discussion and so on--until folks, on the whole, reach a point where the issue is somewhat settled.
Whether or not grades are inherent to a rock, as you stated, seems about the least relevant question to pursue. I mean, ask a rock and let's see how far that gets us. If it was true, I can see how that would be the best basis for an objective system whose representations of a rock's difficulty got closer and closer to representing the inherent difficulty. But again, the only way to create grades that are of some use is to ask a climber not a rock, and that throws us back into our subjective group.
So, I'm afraid I have to disagree with your whole basic position. Rather than measuring up to the rock, we measure the rock up to us. You're going to do back flips when I say this, but the grade is always a style in that it will always be subject to what we climbers agree it is or is not. Don't be precious about the notion of an objective system. If I come across an cold to the prospect of such a system, I make no apologies. It just won't work.