Continuity problems

Yeah, but part of the problem with reload being a convoluted mess is that for many years earlier in GCC's history, when some target needed something done, half the time it was done in the md file and half the time it was done by hacking reload so that it did *just* the right thing for some shape of RTL that only that target would produce. And, of course, this was often not documented. Hello unstated assumptions and fragility.

(This is not to say that you are wrong in any way. There are other problems too, not least the 'it works on major targets' RTL, it must be complete' problem you mention...)