Agreed, the balance isn't easy to find, but it's not a law of nature either. How it has (had?) been handled though, it robs us all of great racing. If you think back to the great duels this year, they weren't because the drivers all aggressively raced to the apex, forcing off of and risking collisions with other drivers. And then there's the old story of: imagine if there was grass or gravel out there, I assure you, that they both would have behaved very differently.

Obviously there’s a difference between being forced off and putting yourself in a silly position where you run out of track

There's already the notion, that when locking up for example, then you aren't fully in control of your car anymore and at least for collisions, that assigns you blame. So one could generalize that.

Yes we've seen a lot of this. That's exactly the point. These problems aren't new and the calls for change aren't either. In fact, Alonso warned of exactly this behavior and the problems that come with it years ago.

To the point of allowing a collision to happen, I'm reminded of a somewhat different situation of 2019, but one which should have been a slam dunk penalty: Leclerc forcing off Hamilton in the braking zone of the second chicane in Monza. The implication of the stewards' reasoning was that because there was no contact, there wasn't a time penalty. And there was only no contact, because Lewis took to the grass to avoid the collision. So yes, this problem has also existed for a long time and yes, inconsistent ruling makes it only worse. The fact remains though, that under the current regs, you can get away with throwing your car in somewhere and counting on the other driver to avoid a collision.

I don't completely disagree but this is true for all the greats. Schumi crashing into people and forcing others off track, Vettel always pushing people to to very edges of the track and his insane fake outs into dive bombs, hell Senna has his famous "if you no longer to for a gap" quote that everyone loves but have somehow forgotten that he was saying it to justify an absolutely ludicrous and dangerous move.

Even Hamilton was always criticised for his aggressive style that he would shrug off saying it's how he has to drive if he wants to win, he didn't have the luxury of driving respectfully and carefully.

I think the thing that seems to separate a good driver and a great driver is their ability to walk on the very edge of the rules to gain every little bit of an advantage possible, otherwise why are you even there? I want reform but hate the game, not the players.

Yes he has. He wouldn't have been able to, if the rules didn't favor that style though.

IMO, that T8 move is just as bad or worse than Hamilton’s on Verstappen at Silverstone 21

I would be very surprised if Max hadn’t work shopped the rules with RB to understand exactly what he could and couldn’t do.

Of course.

Where I do think he differs is that hes the only one whose repeatedly gone for this grey area and that this grey boundary has been work shopped as an actual stratergy.

First: I don't think that this is exactly a grey area, but just a big hole in the regulations. But even, if I grant you that, the questions then become: Why is he the only one? And what would happen if everybody started copying that behaviour? To answer the second question: We are beginning to see this up and down the field. And usually what ensues, is chaos and penalties, because it is impossible to judge the criteria correctly from the cockpit and you need Slow Motion or even Frame Freeze Analysis from different angles to correctly judge it. As for the first question, I offer the following thesis: There is this understanding between drivers even in the lower series (maybe not the very young karting; those are ruthless), an unwritten Gentlemen's Agreement if you will. And the written rules have become more and more distanced to those principles.

Lando used Maxs own spells against him

Exactly the problem (and solution). It is normal that you have to somewhat adjust your driving to your opponent you're racing. Here, Lando went more aggressive on the brakes. Important to note though: While still making the corner, albeit in a sub-optimal fashion for a chicane with a straight after it. The difference in braking points can be well explained by that line. Max on the other hand went less aggressive than he did before, mainly because Carlos was directly in front of him, before then accelerating and thereby widening his line. I do wonder if Carlos wasn't there: Would Max have kept his nose in front of Lando at the apex and then maybe even ran wide himself like during the US GP and got away with it? Because them's the rules? Remember: The penalty for turn 8 was because he overtook outside of track limits, not because he crowded Lando off almost causing a collision and the stewards explicitly note that he would have been entitled to racing room. And for the T12 incident at COTA they write:

Car 4 was overtaking Car 1 on the outside, but was not level with Car 1 at the apex. Therefore under the Driving Standards Guidelines, Car 4 had lost the “right” to the corner. (...) A 5 second penalty is imposed instead of the 10 second penalty recommended in the guidelines because having committed to the overtaking move on the outside the driver of Car 4 had little alternative other than to leave the track because of the proximity of Car 1 which had also left the track.

As you can see, the forcing off track is only mitigating for Lando's lasting advantage penalty, but not in itself a breach of the rules for Max, who wasn't investigated or even noted for it, although he was only first at the apex because he couldn't keep it on track himself.

EDIT: Spelling