Lost or Out of Bounds Ball

[Dennis Harwood]

John - To continue this discussion a bit, if you don't mind.

Assuming that there is little problem "in the field" so far as player disputes in uncoupling penalties for lost ball and out of bounds ( as to which I still have questions ), how does creating separate penalties make the Rules simpler? Certainly reducing a penalty for one ( eliminating the distance penalty for OB for example ) makes the game easier, ie lower scores. But I am having difficulty understanding how different penalties for different conditions, often adjoining and often configured so that it is frequently difficult, if not factually impossible to determine into which the ball came to rest, achieve the goal of simpler to understand and apply Rules.

Are not the Rules easier to understand and apply if, from a penalty/relief aspect, it matters not in which condition it is determined the ball came to rest?