Item 18: Bounded densification study

Whether exposure weights can be chosen so that outstanding delayed exposure stays bounded uniformly in time while the harvest against persistent defect diverges. Deliberately scoped: study the abstract exposure geometry, analyze a small representative set of delay-growth regimes, and run one serious constructive search and one serious impossibility search.

Stop on the first of: a nontrivial construction, a partial density improvement, a sharp lower bound, a clean obstruction, or a precise next lemma whose resolution controls the problem.

Deliverable shape: whichever stopping object is reached — a construction (lean-proved or witness-checked), a lower bound, or a stated controlling lemma as conjectured. A clean obstruction is a success. Acceptance check: for a construction or bound, the relevant gate accepts the entry; for an obstruction or lemma, the report states it precisely enough to be attacked next round.

Context: prompts/2026-08-11-deference-densification/REPORT.md. Why it is bounded: the unbounded version is a full trader formalization, which is item 7 and a different project.