Status: IN
Decorator's independently established compositional niche (responsibility augmentation, differentiated from Adapter's interface conversion and Composite's hierarchy modeling) confirms its intermediate position in the wrapping taxonomy (between Proxy's access control and Strategy's algorithm substitution), validating that the wrapping depth axis captures genuine design distinctions not reducible to pattern categorization.
Depth-3 — Decorator's niche (depth-1) independently validates its position in the wrapping taxonomy (depth-2) via convergent evidence
Depends on (SL): decorator-distinct-compositional-niche, wrapping-taxonomy-access-to-algorithm