docs: the four flow rulings, compare unparked, and the beta premise superseded

All four ruled, all four taking design-dev's recommendation, relayed via Miranda
with booth-dev as sole relay. Verbatim copy committed at docs/rulings/ because
the booth holding it will sweep.

Which is the observation worth keeping: answering a pick removes the hold that
was protecting the record. A booth is held while its question is OPEN, so its
lifetime is shortest exactly when it has just become valuable — before the
answer it is a question, after it is the record of a decision, and only the
first state is protected. Both design booths hit this by different routes, one
withdrawn and one answered. Raised to design-dev as a flow question rather than
patched, since flow is his now.

Compare mode leaves the parking lot: our deferral, his overrule, recorded as his
call so nobody re-parks it by reading the older rule.

And v1.0.0b1's 'no new features' promise no longer describes the arc. The tag
stays as written — rewriting a released tag to flatter the present is how a
version stops being evidence — an alpha drop-back is illegal because 1.0.0a2
sorts below 1.0.0b1, and no further pre-release is cut until the arc lands.

ROADMAP.md

@@ -1,12 +1,20 @@
 # The Booth — roadmap
 
 Design: [`docs/design/information-architecture.md`](docs/design/information-architecture.md).
-Current version: `1.0.0b1` (**U1 through U7 landed — every v1 capability is
-in**; extracted from eshpfi 2026-09-21). **The v1 target is MET and staged as a
-beta** (operator, 2026-09-22): feature-complete, external testing, no new
-features — the remaining work is bugs. `1.0.0` final is cut when the beta
-survives; per the canonical policy an rc would be cut from the same commit,
-but a beta may still take fixes.
+Current version: `1.0.0b1` (**U1 through U7 landed**; extracted from eshpfi
+2026-09-21).
+
+⚠ **THE BETA'S PREMISE IS SUPERSEDED AND THE TAG CANNOT BE UNSAID.**
+`v1.0.0b1` was cut 2026-09-22 promising "feature-complete, no new features, the
+remaining work is bugs." On 2026-09-23 the operator ruled a flow redesign and
+compare mode into the arc, which are emphatically new features. **The tag stays
+as written** — it is an immutable record of what was believed at the time, not a
+claim about now — and no further pre-release is cut until the arc lands.
+Dropping back to an alpha is not available: `1.0.0a2` sorts BELOW `1.0.0b1`, and
+versions do not go backwards.
+
+**Whether `1.0.0` waits for the redesign is the operator's call** and is not
+yet made. See the design-arc section.
 
 ## v1 target
 
@@ -143,14 +151,18 @@ weighed against the v1 path and lost on purpose.
 
 | item | why parked |
 |---|---|
-| **Compare mode** — pair-by-name A/B across subfolders | The best idea in the set, and the only one that is a *new capability* rather than a fix for a measured defect. The four-booth `pancake-v3/v4` dance still works. First thing in v1.1. |
+| ~~**Compare mode**~~ — **UNPARKED 2026-09-23, IN THIS ARC** | Parked as "the only new capability rather than a fix for a measured defect", and **that deferral was ours and the operator overruled it.** design-dev argued it belongs in this arc because the ladders and bakeoffs already need it; the operator ruled `this_arc`. Lands AFTER the Desk and the reel, as a view toggle over the same item record. Recorded so nobody re-parks it by reading an older rule. |
 | Virtualized / progressive grid loading | Speculative. 270 `<img loading="lazy">` may be fine. **Measure the real booth before optimising it** — if it renders inside a second, this is invented work. |
 | Bench uptime history + graphs | The v1 need is "is it dead", which one flag answers. A time series is a different product. |
 | Cross-booth search | No evidence of the need in the usage data. |
 | Per-viewer state (who has seen what) | The Booth has one viewer. Revisit if that stops being true. |
 | Auth | Standing non-goal. LAN/mesh-internal. Blur stays cosmetic and says so. |
 
-## Post-v1, already committed
+## The design arc — IN SCOPE, not post-v1
+
+⚠ **This section used to be "Post-v1, already committed" and it is not post-v1
+any more.** The operator's 2026-09-23 rulings put a flow redesign and compare
+mode inside the arc, so the work below is part of what ships, not after it.
 
 - **SVOS theme retrofit by `design-dev` — HANDED OFF AND ACCEPTED 2026-09-22**
   (althing thread `01M369321KNBPZ7FYDQGZG7AXP`). Runs as a parallel track, not a