The UWP is fuzzy goes all the way back to the first world building article in JTAS written by the Keith brothers. They took the planet Craw as an example of how to interpret the UWP to make an interesting world for adventure. They made the "taint" be low partial pressure of O2 so that the solution was a respirator, not a filter mask, even though pressure was standard. And they buffed up the population with an alien species the locals treat as a beast of burden, not people, so they weren't counted.
I don't think it's "lazy" to not change the demonstrated practice of 50 years of product development. To accomplish what? To make a few liberally interpreted worlds conform to a simplistic recording keeping system? To start arguments over whether Craw counts as a "Very Thin" atmosphere (because it needs a respirator) or "Standard, Tainted" (because air pressure is normal for all other purposes, like flight, despite the "tainted" rules requiring a filter mask not a respirator) or should just be rewritten to conform?
The UWP's purpose is to provide a short hand for "at a glance flyover" visits and be a starting point prompt for more in depth development if the GM is going to run full adventures there. It was never, ever intended to be a rigid categorization. And, honestly, I don't see what is gained by constraining the authors more than they already are. The UWP certainly has zero constraint on the people actually playing the game.
Honestly, I don't get what harm it causes. Nothing anyone publishes after you've started developing a world yourself is going to match, so you'll have to edit it. And if you haven't developed anything about the world yet, the fact that their use of the UWP is a bit stretched is not going to break anything.
I don't think it's "lazy" to not change the demonstrated practice of 50 years of product development. To accomplish what? To make a few liberally interpreted worlds conform to a simplistic recording keeping system? To start arguments over whether Craw counts as a "Very Thin" atmosphere (because it needs a respirator) or "Standard, Tainted" (because air pressure is normal for all other purposes, like flight, despite the "tainted" rules requiring a filter mask not a respirator) or should just be rewritten to conform?
The UWP's purpose is to provide a short hand for "at a glance flyover" visits and be a starting point prompt for more in depth development if the GM is going to run full adventures there. It was never, ever intended to be a rigid categorization. And, honestly, I don't see what is gained by constraining the authors more than they already are. The UWP certainly has zero constraint on the people actually playing the game.
Honestly, I don't get what harm it causes. Nothing anyone publishes after you've started developing a world yourself is going to match, so you'll have to edit it. And if you haven't developed anything about the world yet, the fact that their use of the UWP is a bit stretched is not going to break anything.