Philip, your brief bracing analysis is totally misleading. The logical conclusion of your thinking is that a guitar top with no bracing would be liveliest of all. In fact all the experiments carried out so far negate that viewpoint completely.

Bracing, properly installed and shaped, is an integral part of a guitar top, contributing to, not detracting from the tone, and to view it as "restrictive" is to miss the point completely.

Murray