"What I meant with the objectivity part is that if you look at other aspects of pixel art you can make objective statements."
I never have had any interest in making any objective statements about how AA should be. My intuitions and the framework I've explained over the years in the ramblethread come from a different place, even though the language I've used sometimes can be construed as trying for objectivity (because I talk like a robot). Let there be no misunderstanding, I state it plainly now (and as many times more as I have to in the future, I will), what I'm talking about is about aesthetics, and aesthetics are personal, third parties either see something in them or they don't (or they do further down the line). There needs to be no consensus and no objectivity talk.
I find the concept of 'objective statements in art' to be fascinating sometimes but mostly a fantasy in application and do not wish to feed that approach to art. I urge you to find what it is about 'suboptimal AA' as you call it you find aesthetically displeasing because I'm certain it's not about anything objective. I certainly don't find, for example, banding displeasing because of objective reasons, but because I find horisontal/vertical breaking to look ugly.
Insofar as we can discuss things, of course we present arguments that try to be structured and logical. I can say why I prefer a staircase of pixels instead of a 45 degree single pixel line now, and you can assess that position and agree or disagree, that's all good - but I do not want to talk about objectivity in any of that, we are all bringing in our personalities in making aesthetic choices. Finer and finer apparent resolution is not a set in stone goal of all pixel art.
If you like order, things in a structure, then you might be used in a very specific type of order. This approach here that deemphasizes more abstract cluster connections (because that's what single pixel connections are - more abstract, the mind has to fill in more missing data) might upset you because it's a different type of order. Have you tried it? Have you pixelled anything in this style from the ground up, to see if your mind readjusts? I certainly would find this whole thing preposterous if I read it and hadn't tried it first-hand.
By trying to find a place for this thing by saying that the Rhythm Tengoku glasses PPD drew are okay for it (but not other things?) you're trying to impose some order on something you don't have a lot of experience with. The picture I'm drawing has nothing to do with Rhythm Tengoku, and you might not like it and you might find things wrong with it, but they are choices I'm making on purpose to achieve a different thing than what you're expecting (which could be achieved with single pixels).
So, in all, I would suggest making a few pictures with this method before you write your opinion in ink. And try to be brave about them, they don't have to be ink-drawing iconography like PPD's glasses. I never got into pixel art to impose order on something, I got into it so I could cultivate some impulses in a form on which I had the most control.
re: critique on the image, thanks.