Almost all the support for non-free in Debian is a free result of our support for free software. [...] none of them would be significantly simpler or even different if we didn't support non-free. [...]
I disagree with your choice of "significantly". Besides the time, space and consistency improvements, I think it also makes Debian easier to explain.
Basically, the issue is why spend 100 man hours on maintaining Debian,then another 90 man hours on maintaining a separate non-free repository,when you can spend 101 man hours maintaining Debian and it's existing support for non-free?
Further, I disagree with your time estimates. The time spent on non-free is not directly related to time spent on Debian, either now or in the future. People are already spending time on non-free rather than on Debian and I think it likely that DD time is spent on non-free when it could be done by non-DDs. Basically, the issue is why waste any DD hours and project facilities on maintaining non-Debian things when you can spend all that on Debian?
I also think that there will be benefits of new developers, supporters and collaborators if we let non-free go.
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