How far back until the last time the wording of 310.4 has been changed? (I really don't know I am asking, and I am asking about the wording, not any moving of sections without changing anything else in case that has happened)That is the time period when you need to find the authors from.
Here is an a drawing of an example charlie b posted in post #137. If conditions are right in theory you can balance it and call it 100% parallel. That doesn't make it ok with 310.4 though.
When it comes to conductors and terminations there is resistance that happens there. That is why each section of a parallel conductor needs to have same characteristics so that each section has equal resistance and divides the current equally. In the "ring" circuit the conductors are parallel to each other from the source to the "middle" of the ring, but each side does not have even sections of wire, splices, or whatever else is "electrically joined together", and is not necessarily loaded evenly either causing more unbalance of the parallel path.
I have asked why and so has Bob, if this is not installing conductors in parallel then why do we even need exception 1 to 310.4(A)? Control circuits have lots of parallel paths to achieve the desired logic sometimes, and they do not normally carry any significant amount of power, it only makes sense for those reasons to allow parallel paths in those type of circuits.