It was explained to you that the op code is *valid* in the context of validating a block (so of course the block would not be rejected by older software). Why do you think it is called a NOP?
Sigh. That is what I always understood. But then:
The primary established mechanism for safe softforks is the reserved script NOPs (which will not be relayed or mined by unmodified software today)
What does this mean? That the current version of the mining software will reject transactions that have those NOPs?
much of software deals with many practical things such as byte size limits that don't apply to math in general so you're not really making any sense with that statement either - if we were talking about pure maths then the block reward would never end for a start
I haven't looked at the code itself, but I do understand a few things about programming. For example, a few months ago I found a rounding error in the table of block rewards on the bitcoin wiki. (And integers are math too, you know.)
On the other hand, I wonder if
you really understand how the protocol is supposed to work. Can you see why the original design did not have non-mining relay nodes?