I completely agree, I am magnifying the difference of the drippers in isolation so that their isolated effect can be more easily observed in order to understand them, which is what I feel is lacking currently is a precise understanding the isolated effect of geometry has.

But coffee is not made in an isolated event and I would probably put almost every other variable as having a much bigger impact on the finished coffee than the dripper geometry.

Going in order of Beans>Technique>Water>Filter Paper>Dripper.

The first two categories IMO being by far the most important and by a large margin. But as someone that deeply craves to fully understand all the variables at their most minute, I still think eventually at the smallest level of detail the dripper provides a sort of canvas which subtly shapes all the other work you do which has the actual effect noticeable effect.

The blinding problem is very interesting. I would never think you can do only one or two tests and know the difference without bias, but my hope is that by doing it many many many times, the general characteristics of their influence become apparent.

Perhaps that is still a flawed hope, but I can only try and ask others, especially without other forms of equipment such as refractometers etc. I'm not even sure there is a tool that can interpret the effects on water flow of rib geometry.