[Wind0ze]

It's nice to see an attempt at replacing the current description of charting styles as technical/dump. However, I think distinguishing styles by additive versus aural isn't the best approach, because the styles are hardly mutually exclusive. As you said, almost all charters fall somewhere between the two, with very few charters that exclusively use one approach. I believe this is because most charters don't really perceive layering as the aforementioned dichotomy, instead handling the choice of how many instruments to layer on a case-by-case basis depending on what their intent for the chart is.

I think this results in your observation of most charters favoring the "aural" approach. Since you define additive charting as one specific case where including as many distinct sounds as possible is the goal, and aural charting as basically "everything else", naturally the more general and inclusive "style" is going to be observed more due to covering a wider range of intentions.

All that aside, I do agree with the sentiment that charters and judges should attempt to understand all styles of charting, including those that strongly emphasize additive layering, which seems to be the main point here.