OP here. Thanks for reading the post! I agree with you. It seems that the HN crowd is very much interested in tools while I explicitly mention that the tool question is the least important one. I'm curious to know why folks are more interested in tools than principles or why there is little discussion about the principles.
Re-reading your post, I would say it comes from implied disagreement with your deprioritization of the right tools. You also use the word system a lot in the essay, which mentally translates to tool for a lot of people (myself included, if I’m not careful.) It’s also hard to do more than mildly agree or disagree with GTD and energy management principles. I also suspect anyone disagreeing with your main point, coming into this thread to insist they can remember everything to do, would be attacked. I agree more variety in the discussion would be nice.