Status: IN
B-tree deletion is structurally degrading: empty leaf pages are never freed, freed pages leave dangling parent pointers, and tree height only increases — causing monotonic space amplification and search-path lengthening over delete-heavy workloads.
Three independent deletion-related gaps compound into a systemic degradation pattern where the tree never reclaims structural overhead
Depends on (SL): btree-delete-leaks-pages, btree-free-page-no-parent-fixup, btree-height-never-shrinks