Status: IN
The selective-defense pattern (invest in efficiency-improving conditions like early exit and short-circuit, skip robustness-improving conditions like input validation) is precisely explained by the judge's evaluation boundary: solutions invest in conditions whose payoff is measurable (early exit improves runtime, which the judge times) and skip conditions whose payoff is invisible (validation guards against inputs the judge never sends).
Causal explanation — selective defense follows logically from optimizing for a judge that measures speed but not robustness
Depends on (SL): selective-defense-replaces-universal-validation, algorithmic-precision-despite-engineering-neglect