Perhaps I am not being clear enough, although I fail to see what is unclear about what I have said.
collusion only comes up in very certain instances where the results are easy to predict and assign value to in a way obvious to both players, and if they are both risk-averse, a comfortable arrangement can be reached. these are outlier situations. the transparency of touranments will not be impacted to any detectable degree.
I am not suggesting that you are at fault in your math or logic.
I think you are incorrect because, generally speaking,
you are viewing the situation of a tournament in a vacuum
and ignoring the factors and influences that come from outside of a given tournament.
Because of this, I do not think this is a question that involves mathematics
as much as it is a question that involves the understanding of societal values and interactions.
As you have said, players have irrational expectations upon entering a tournament which do not necessarily line up with mathematical reality.
However, such irrational player expectations currently include the expectation that people win matches through "actual" Magic skill.
If collusion was legalized, these expectations would have to change for these people to continue playing tournament Magic.
Therefore, it is irrelevant that collusion would be a rare event and relatively inconsequential relative to the results of tournaments.
What is much more important is player expectations.
People who enter a tournament have an irrational expectation that those who win matches do so through skill,
as does society at large regarding competition in tournaments of any pastime or sport,
and consequently almost all Magic players and anyone who even considers trying out tournament Magic.
So, successfully legalizing collusion would need to involve changing these expectations of Magic players, and likely society at large,
because players would quit playing tournament Magic if it didn't line up with their expectations
and no new players would try tournament Magic if it didn't line up with their expectations.
If collusion was legalized and these expectations didn't change to accommodate this,
people would not play tournament Magic because it wouldn't line up with their expectations.
Given all of the above, legalizing collusion would take energy from all involved.
In fact, just discussing legalizing collusion takes energy from all involved.
In either instance, what is the upside to make this worth it?
It is important to identify the upside because I have just identified a downside,
and if something only has a downside and no upside
it is a big, fat waste of time.
You have suggested a "minor upside of letting players maximize their value in a few select situations where it is clearly in their best interest to make a deal".
Why is this an upside? Why does this matter?
Why do players in tournaments need one more method of maximizing their value within a tournament
in addition to playing Magic?
I can see no reason why this is an upside.
At best, this just gives individuals more personal freedom to do something
which you have already explained as something that any intelligent person would almost never want to do.
Why is this a good thing?
This is like giving students reaching sticks to more easily pull the fire alarm during a test.
Any intelligent student would almost never gain anything from pulling the fire alarm during a test,
and expending resources on obtaining and distributing these reaching sticks during tests would likely just piss everyone off
because almost no one would want to use them or care about them
and providing students with methods to pull fire alarms during tests
is, as far as most everyone is concerned, accomplishing nothing more
than making it easier for a very select, small group of individual students to do something that shouldn't be done in the first place.
I do not think this is an upside.
And even if it were a minor upside,
it would not come close to making up for the downsides I have already listed.
Assuming that the above is true, that there has been no actual, relevant upside presented for the legalization of collusion,
I think it is safe to conclude that discussing the legalization of collusion as such
is a big, fat waste of time
save the fact that revealing it as a big, fat waste of time
may prevent similar big, fat wastes of time from cropping up in the future.
