Thanks @dsharifi, this explanation seems largely consistent with my understanding. For anyone looking for more info, @Manu (the handsome chap that he is) did a great video years ago, providing an overview of how the conensus mechanisms slot together. Other details are scattered around docs and source code comments.
@dsharifi, in your overview above you’ve explained why the notorisarion delay (ND) exits, but not why an appropriate value should now be considered independent of subnet size.
If this is the case, could you describe the innovation that has made this so? All large subnets currently have an ND of 1000ms precisely because the statement that you’re making would previously have been regarded as inaccurate (or misleading).
My understanding is that an appropriate setting for ND is dependent on subnet size, but I suspect that recent performance improvement makes the difference marginal to the point of not being significant (such that configuration conistency is preferred over hyper-optimising).
This is my assumption, but the reality hasn’t been made clear, or justified in a way that can be sensibly reasoned about.
I’d like to reiterate my other question too. I haven’t seen an answer for this yet either 
Thanks in advance 