In regard to your question about how to handle the bookkeeping of initiative changes, it is probably easier to look at what is changing about the values rather than trying to recalculate everything from scratch each time.
I think this depends on what ends up being less work. Sometimes it's probably easier to generate a whole new initiative score and subtract 10 for each IP already consumed. But the paperwork isn't really the point of my experiment, it's the hole in the rules that lets this thread grow to 2 pages in the first place, and whether what everyone seems to think is an obvious common sense approach reduces to absurdity or not.
I'm willing to throw rules away that are obviously incorrect or printed in error (is Astral Initiative 2D6 or 3D6? Don't answer that.) but there are times when the rules are simply quiet. In the case of Initiative, it is a problem that they forgot to put
Typed Bonuses into the rules at the same time they put in
Typed Initiative, which is one reason charts like the one on page 159 list "Rigging AR" and "Matrix AR" as separate types of Initiative even though they're exactly the same and there's never any (AFAIK) distinction between the two in any other rules or bonus. If you were going to put in
Typed Bonuses then it would make sense to refer to them as separate Initiative Types. But I digress.
A common sense reading says that if the word "Initiative" is used alone in a rule, then it should refer to standard, meat-world, base Physical Initiative. Wired Reflexes, street drugs, physical spells, etc., all affect Physical Initiative and you should lose these bonuses if you switch to a different Initiative Type according to the Changing Initiative rules. Those rules don't actually say you lose these bonuses (or any bonuses) when you change initiative types, only that you adjust initiative according to the new base values or wound modifiers. So we're already in RAI or House Rule territory.
Then there's the complication of Mixed Initiative. A user with Matrix AR (or Rigging AR) Initiative can take Physical or Matrix actions on his turn. Physical and both AR Initiative Types are calculated in the same way, and switching from Physical to AR doesn't trigger a change in Initiative calculation
unless you take away the Physical bonuses. Why would you, though? The character can still take physical actions on his turn, or he can take a Matrix Action. You're stuck saying that either Wired Reflexes benefit a Matrix Action or that they stop working when you use AR.
Does a dual-natured character switch to Astral Initiative when he begins
perceiving the Astral? It's effectively the same as switching to AR. He can still take physical actions when doing so, but can engage in Astral Combat at the same time. But on what Initiative and with what bonuses? Either he keeps his Physical Initiative (and benefits from those bonuses on Astral Tasks) or switches (and loses those bonuses on Physical Tasks).
Am I incorrect? What in RAW solves the Mixed Initiative problem?