I wonder how much of the path/footway controversy is due to regional issues. Here in the US, footway isn’t a very meaningful term. Governments here don’t build paths and say, “this is a footway.” They generally build paths and make them available to whoever wants to use them. Sometimes they ban bicycles from those paths, in which case we use bicycle=no. To me, the 2nd and 4th pictures in the examples are called “paths” or “trails” in common parlance. I wouldn’t call them a footway or footpath in conversation. There’s nothing special that makes them more for pedestrians than other non-motorized modes.

As for bridleway, the only ways I’ve ever seen in the US which qualify are sections of trail which run parallel to a path or cycleway, for the purpose of separating traffic. I’ve never seen a stand-alone bridleway here, and Taginfo confirms that it is relatively sparse usage outside of Europe.

It’s generally agreed-upon by most that a “path” is a non-motorized way. Richard, your contention is that there’s less information in highway=path. To me, that’s a good thing. Too much information, when inaccurate, is just as bad as too little. Without the path tag, mappers are forced to shoehorn a path into a footway, cycleway, or bridleway, adding information that they don’t actually have. Sometimes (or most often, in my experience) a path is just a path.

You seem to be asking why we need path when we have footway, cycleway, and bridleway. I think the question should be: why do we need footway when we have path? Cycleway makes sense, because some ways are clearly and verifiably intended for bicycles first: they have dividing lines, or special signals, or painted symbols like in your first picture. What makes a footway clearly and verifiably intended for foot traffic over all other modes? Perhaps the presence of obstacles, like power poles, mailboxes, bus shelters, etc. which would make cycling undesirable on that way? Otherwise, at least in the US, walking is implied on any way except motorways, or where otherwise tagged.

Nor should signage and restrictions alone constitute a footway. That would be redundant with the access key. The highway key is about the way itself. A motorway isn’t just a motor-only road; it has a meaning beyond that.

No, the great problem I see is trying to push too much meaning into the highway key. We should be encouraging greater objective detail by using the other keys we have, like smoothness, surface, and access, not trying to fit all the information into a single key like highway. I think you’re on the right track (path?) in your last two paragraphs: we should encourage more detail. I just don’t think ideas like Duck Tagging or “whoosh/splush/plod” encourage that detail to be added, and I don’t think using footway/cycleway/bridleway necessitates that detail any less than path does. Vclaw has a nice example in the mountain bike trails: they go “whoosh” for a mountain biker, maybe, but “plod” on a road bike.