Not that I’m denigrating your essays, which are wonderful, but aren’t a lot of the conclusions predicated on the assumption that the author knows this stuff, and bothered with the math, too? You’ve mentioned math mistakes, & I remember one error about relative weight of armor types. What if your theories on populations-to-troops ratios are based on facts GRRM simply has not thought through? Maybe GRRM doesn’t KNOW it’s impossible for Robert to have spent so much? Or do you his sources?

A lot of my essays (math or otherwise) are assuming a certain level of internal consistency with the worldbuilding, but as much as GRRM does make mistakes, it hangs together better than people often give him credit for. 

As for the population-to-troop ratios, since that stuff started with Elio who’s in a better position than anyone else to check with GRRM about whether his estimates were right, I feel more confident about that. 

Re: Robert’s spending, I would be more worried about that stuff if GRRM hadn’t written the Tyrion chapters which strongly hint that LF committed fraud.