I don't disagree, but it's one of those things which is more vulnerable to Goodhart's law than most.  So it's kind of a heisen-hint.  It may give a hint at any point in time but as soon as someone starts looking at it or even advocating for it without looking then its value as a hint vanishes.[/quote]
Yes, I agree here, and in fact I have seen a Reddit thread where a manipulation in favour of Knots was ongoing (with some people launching big Knots farms on VPS platforms ...). The manipulation attempt can even be seen at coin.dance in early September (some of the nodes seem to be offline again now), and after that event the numbers are more or less stagnating. These indicators / hints should be taken always with a grain of salt and never be used in the form of a "threshold" for any decision, but together they can give part of the picture, but probably only if you observe them for longer time periods.

For example, I think the current Knots increase is significant but its magnitude is still not really telling if there is real adoption by node owners not directly participating in the discussion. But if in 4-6 months the number of Knots nodes was still the same or higher, even if the discussion about OP_RETURN had already waned a bit, then it's a hint for real adoption. Often the manipulators want to impress with "explosive" short-term increases, so it is likely for them to run out of steam in a couple of months so the numbers become more credible again.