If a subclassification path=* were introduced, data users could simply treat that as their top-level for paths. highway=path would add no information to that, it’s implicit.
However, they still would have to process highway=path without path=* for a long time. I think one of the subclasses should serve as the recommended world wide default for data users, not because that ís The Path, but because it serves clarity and consistency across mappers and applications.
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