Status: IN
Decorator's base class forwarding default (every operation delegates to the wrapped component unless overridden) is the engineering mechanism that enables composition-based scaling: without forwarding defaults, each decorator would need to reimplement every component operation, making the class count grow with operations × decorators rather than additively — the forwarding default is what converts Decorator's recursive wrapping from theoretically elegant to practically scalable.
Forwarding defaults are the mechanism that makes Decorator's theoretical scalability practically achievable
Depends on (SL): decorator-forwards-to-component-by-default, decorator-proves-composition-scalability