Of course it does.  The hash of block 0 will never change.  I can print it out, put it in my safe and verify that network starts from the same genesis block a century from now.  The hash of X will change periodically and may not be consistent among all nodes.  For NXT it changes twice a day.   If you can't see the difference in the level of verification of a single universal static value which is hardcoded into the client (and if the client is insecure/flawed/noncompliant you have already broken a basic security assumption of all cryptocurrencies) and a locally computed value which is continually changing and may not be consistent for all nodes then well then you just don't want to see.


The "for whatever reason" makes it a true but pointless statement.  If your node is secure and compliant then you verify the best chain independently UNLESS the protocol has local checkpoints as that behavior is non deterministic.  With a network which needs local checkpoints, you can never independently verify that you are on the best chain. That is a huge problem for a network which is designed for facilitate commerce without a trusted third party.

So to replace it with a meaningful distinction:
Given a secure and compliant node, and a protocol that uses does not local checkpoint rules, then your node can independently verify the best chain.
Given a secure and compliant node, and a protocol that uses does local checkpoint rules, then your node can not independently verify the best chain.

That will be my last post because honestly at this point if you don't see it, then it simply means you don't want to see it.